Editor Insights: The Masters Review
Editor-in-Chief Cole Meyer shares his thoughts on submissions
Cole Meyer, editor-in-chief at The Masters Review, recently joined my Writers Studio class, “How to Submit Work to Literary Journals,” as a special guest. The opportunity to have a live discussion with a real lit mag editor is always one of the highlights of the course for my students. Here are just a few of the many insights he shared during our conversation.
Advice for submitting:
“The biggest thing that I recommend to any writer at any stage is really know the journal that you’re submitting to. That’s easier said than done. There are a lot of journals out there. It takes a lot of time to really read and understand the audience and the aesthetic of a journal. But your chances of having your work accepted are going to go up substantially if you’re submitting to journals that meet the aesthetic of your writing.
You don’t necessarily want to be submitting to or publishing in places that aren’t serving your own writing goals or are not really meeting the kind of aesthetic that you have imagined for yourself. It is a service to yourself and it’s a service to the journals as well to really understand what they’re looking for and be able to self-assess whether your own work is meeting those needs too.”
How to assess if your work is right for a literary journal
Read or skim a couple pieces they’ve published recently
See what they’re putting out on social media
Pick a piece from the last year or so and see if it would fit beside your work
Check out the journal’s online presence (typos, broken links, grainy images, etc. could be red flags)
What The Masters Review is looking for:
New and emerging writers, people who really care about their craft and maybe haven’t had their first publication yet or are just now getting into the world of submitting
Stories that are character-driven
“I like speculative work, things that are kind of weird and strange and unusual. That’s not always necessarily what we publish, we publish really across the spectrum. We’re a journal that’s focused on literary stories, but we do publish works that slant towards genre or have those kinds of elements incorporated in them. But we’ve never limited submissions to a certain style or content focus.”
Here’s an example Cole gave of a character-driven story they published that had elements of sci-fi in it: “Adult Education” by Laura Maylene Walter
What can give a submission an edge:
Stories that are polished (well-edited)
Stories with perspectives, settings, and/or characters not seen very often
Stories that seem familiar but are told in a new way
Things to avoid in your stories (because editors see them all the time):
Starting with a character waking up (everyone’s day starts this way) - get us closer to the action
Tropey twists at the end - “it was all a dream” or it was all building up to a punchline
Common mistakes he sees in submissions:
People leaving track changes on in their submissions
Writers submitting poetry (The Masters Review doesn’t publish poetry)
Using fancy fonts (all this does is irritate the people reading it)
Not submitting double-spaced work (another irritation for editors/readers)
Not submitting anonymously when asked to
Sneaking in multiple submissions when guidelines request only one at a time
The title in the file name not matching the title in the document (it makes him worry you may have attached the wrong story)
Your most important job as a writer:
“Your job as a writer is to hold the reader’s attention. Especially right now, especially for reading online, there are so many different distractions in the world. It’s so easy if the story isn’t holding your attention to just pick up your phone or start watching what’s on the TV or just look elsewhere. Make sure that everything you’re saying in your story is 100% important.
Novels have more room to develop slowly or have that kind of ‘fluff’ space, but short stories really need to grab your attention and hold it from start to finish. And if it’s not, there are probably places in the beginning or in the middle, maybe close to the end, where you can trim down. Some of it can be implied or just gestured toward if the space on the page isn’t being properly served for the story.”
Sticking the landing
“I’m more frequently let down by the end of a story than by the beginning. There are so many great starts to stories where I’m really, really hoping that the writer sticks it, and then it just takes the wrong turn at the end, and it flattens the story, or it takes us in a different direction, or it leaves threads unresolved, and it feels just like a missed opportunity. Those are the ones that hurt the most to me when I have to say no because it’s so close. Or there was so much promise and then you came out of left field, or you did the thing that was too expected, and it didn't feel like a well-earned ending.
Beginnings are a little easier to edit, from my perspective. If it’s off to a slow start, we can cut something - that I can help you with as an editor. Getting you to the right ending is a little harder. I think that’s something that the writer needs to own.”
I hope you found these insights helpful. I’m very grateful to Cole for sharing his thoughts with me and my students, and now you too!
If you’re interested in joining my next “How to Submit Work to Literary Magazines” class, let me know at janelle@janellewrites.com. I’ll notify you as soon as the next class is posted.
👋 Hi there, and thanks for reading! I’m Janelle Drumwright, a writer, teacher at The Writers Studio, instructor at Chill Subs, and reader at The Masters Review. I help writers strengthen their work and teach them how to submit to literary journals. Find me at janellewrites.com.