G U I D E L I N E S F O R
W E B S U B M I S S I O N S .
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Dear writers,
A good portion of the work we publish on the website comes from complete strangers such as yourselves. While we remain small and irresponsible, and afflicted with mold-born allergies, we do our best to respond to all submissions quickly and professionally. That said, there are a number of things you can do to further enhance and streamline the experience for yourselves and for your friendly McSweeney's editorial staff.
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE WEBSITE
Must be sent to us via e-mail, according to the guidelines below.
E-MAIL ADDRESSES
All submissions, with the exception of Lists, Sestinas, Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond, and Reviews of New Food, should be sent to websubmissions@mcsweeneys.net.
Lists should be sent to lists@mcsweeneys.net.
Sestinas are no longer being accepted at this time.
Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond should be sent to openletters@mcsweeneys.net. (Note: We generally publish no more than one Open Letter from any one person.)
Reviews of New Food should be sent to newfood@mcsweeneys.net.
LENGTH
Submissions for the web should be shortish. By shortish we mean an absolute maximum of 1,500 words, but in truth we look more kindly on pieces that top out at 1,000 words, and snuggle closest to ones that are even shorter than that. Submissions of exactly 742 words seem to automatically appear on the site, as if by magic.
COVER LETTERS
Are unnecessary, but not forbidden by any means.
PLEASE PASTE
The entire document into the e-mail message. Do not send us attachments. We are afraid of what these attachments may be carrying.
SUBMITTING ONE THING AT A TIME
Is highly encouraged. When you receive a response on the current submission, feel free to send the next one our way immediately.
FORMATTING
Please do not format your piece in an unusual way. Do not use colors or Fun Fonts. Don't even bother describing how your piece would be best if formatted in a particular way, because we probably cannot achieve this formatting on the site. We're just not that smart.
CURLY QUOTES / SMART APOSTROPHES / CLEVER SYMBOLS
It would be ideal if you could ensure that the pasted-into-e-mail version of your submission does not contain "curly quotes" or "smart quotes" or any other kind of allegedly intelligent punctuation. Those do not tend to come across well in e-mail. Sometimes they appear to us, the recipient, as little boxes. Sometimes they end up in something called Unicode, meaning your submission will look like this:
“I’ve told you again and again: I didn’t steal your sister’s copy of ‘Carlito’s Way, ’ ” O’Malley reiterated.
YOUR NAME
Should be on your submission. Put your name and phone number under the title of your piece. Absolutely all submissions must look like this:
My Funny Experience [story title]
By William Williams [author's name]
(555) 555-5555 [phone number]
willywill@internet.com [e-mail address]
The e-mail address listed should be the one you would like to appear linked to your byline should we choose to publish your submission. If you do not want your e-mail address linked to your byline, please tell us so.
YOUR SUBJECT LINE
Should contain some indicator of what is contained in your submission. A version of the title is recommended. If you are submitting for a particular feature (New Food, Open Letters, Lists, Sestinas, etc.), you should include that in the subject line along with the title.
Under no circumstances should you include something like YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE THIS, or INCREASE INCHES AND ENERGY TODAY, or AWESOME SCREENSAVER in your subject line.
AUTHOR BIOS
Are not necessary for website submissions.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK
Cannot be considered.
PAYMENT
There will likely be none. If there is any, it may come very late or in unusual currency.
RESPONSE TIME
Can be anywhere between 10 minutes and a month. Please be patient.
REASONS YOU MIGHT NOT HEAR BACK FROM US
- Our spam-blocking software thought you were concerned about our breast size.
- Being occasionally forgetful, we think that we have responded, but we really haven't, and we (accidentally) deleted your submission without responding.
- You have an overaggressive spam-blocking program that rejects our reply.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU DON'T HEAR BACK FROM US ABOUT YOUR SUBMISSION
- Rail to your friends about the callous insensitivity of free, Web-based content outlets to the needs and feelings of writers. Vow the most thorough and satisfying of revenges.
- Resend your submission. It takes less time to respond to a resend than to answer a query. We really do mean to respond to every submission in a timely manner and if you haven't heard from us within the above-mentioned time frame, it's just an oversight.
SOME REASONS WE MIGHT SEND BACK OR DISLIKE YOUR SUBMISSION
The following features do not necessarily disqualify any submission guilty of one or more of them, but they do not help one's cause:
- Your submission was of the poetry type and was not a sestina.
- Your submission was too long.
- Your submission included the words "these days" or "nowadays."
- Your submission did not take place in a jungle.
- Your submission did not capitalize the first letters of sentences.
- Your submission was not credited to a person with a first and last name, and an address and phone number.
- Your submission was credited to an obvious pseudonym.
- Your submission included clever formatting which rendered it illegible.
- Your submission concerned life in college.
- Your submission was some kind of list of goofy e-mail names from spam you received.
HUMOR PIECES THAT USE A "FAKE NEWS" FORMAT
Should not be sent to us. There are better websites that already do this.
BOOK REVIEWS
Are not desired.
ART AND CARTOONS
Also don't fit into our scheme of things right now.
PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE NO LONGER CONSIDERING PIECES FOR BOTH THE PRINT JOURNAL AND THE WEBSITE
Under no circumstances should you submit your written work to both printsubmissions@mcsweeneys.net and to websubmissions@mcsweeneys.net. If you submit a piece of writing intended for the magazine to the web-submissions address, you will confuse us, and if you confuse us, we will accidentally delete your work without reading it, and then we will laugh and never give it another moment's thought, and we will sleep the carefree sleep of young children.
MAILING ADDRESS
Is not applicable for website submissions.
ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
Are happily answered if you send them to letters@mcsweeneys.net.
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.