Submission Guidelines
Note to aspiring writers: It's not easy
March/April 1999
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern (www.mcsweeneys.net/)
We Welcome Unsolicitecd Manuscripts. Submissions offered to
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McSweeney's should be original, or as original as is
convenient, and their text should not draw significantly upon
articles published previously by the author, unless, again, it was
inconvenient to do otherwise. All manuscripts should be
typewritten, double-spaced, with 25 lines per page, and margins of
at least one inch each side, except the bottom, where the margin
should be one and one-quarter inch, unless the font used is
Bookman, in which case the manuscript should be single-spaced and
the margins should be three-fourths of an inch all around, except
for the bottom, which should remain one and one-quarter inch. The
standard length for articles is 785 words. Deviation from the
standard length must be accompanied by a compelling note of
explanation. When sending your submissions,
McSweeney's asks
the following, in the interest of clarity and expediency: 1.
Please, when addressing your envelope, indicate on the lower
left-hand corner the approximate quality of the enclosed
submission. Please be clear and truthful, and if possible use one
of the following assessments:
a) A Centerpiece; b) A Must Read;
c) Superb, Synergistic Even; d) Excellent, and at Least Optionable;
e) Very Good; f) Good; g) Pretty Good; h) Cloying, but Editable; i)
Editable in a Pinch; j) Rewritable; k) Will Go Through Five
Versions and Get Worse; l) Not at All Worth the Trouble, Despite
the Amusing Cover Letter. 2. If your work addresses issues of
race or class, please indicate to which race and/or class you
belong. Manuscripts will not be returned under any circumstances
and only stand a chance of response if they arrive accompanied by a
SASE, which will more likely be cannibalized for the stamp and
discarded. To Answer Your Question: This journal, of which 2,500
copies were made, cost $4,109 to print (approx. $1.64 a copy).
Shipping to and from Iceland, where this was most assuredly
printed, was about $1,400, bringing the total bill to about $5,509,
which was offset in part by a meaningful donation by one of the
journal's contributors, but the majority of which was fronted by
the makers of