A cover letter for a literary magazine is a few lines that travel with your story or poems: what the piece is, how long it is, whether other magazines have it too, and a short bio in the third person. It is not a pitch, and the editors we read agree on the core: keep it short, and never summarise the work.
EdCitation publishes this guide. Every rule in it comes from a magazine's own submission page, an editor's published advice, Purdue's Online Writing Lab or Submittable's help centre, all read on 3 October 2026, and our own advice is marked as ours. No letter can get a piece accepted, and nothing here promises that. Which magazines to try, and when they read, is covered in where to submit a short story.
EdCitation never writes any part of your story, poems, letter or bio. It reads rules: the free Check your paper turns a magazine's guidelines into a checklist, each rule beside the sentence it came from, so the letter you write yourself says what that magazine asked for.
What should a cover letter for a literary magazine include?
Include what the magazine's own page asks for and little else: usually the title, genre and word count, whether it is a simultaneous submission, and a short bio. The table gives each page's own terms, quoted where the wording matters.
| Magazine | What its page asks the letter to carry | What it asks you to leave out |
|---|---|---|
| Ploughshares | "your name, submission date, contact information, and a brief bio citing previous publications, if any" | A description: "You do not need to describe your submission" |
| One Story | "the word count for your submission and a short biographical statement" | Nothing stated |
| Strange Horizons | Name, pronouns (optional), email, title, word count, a bio of "50 words or less" | "plot synopses or pitches"; letters written or edited by generative AI |
| The Adroit Journal | A third-person bio, "generally no more than five sentences" | Nothing stated |
| SmokeLong Quarterly | "a print-ready, third-person bio" | Anything identifying in the story file |
| AGNI | Any part written with others or taken from found materials, "up front" | Work produced in whole or in part by a large language model |
| The Masters Review | A bio, the genre and the word count | A summary; every journal and award |
| Clarkesworld (Neil Clarke) | Relevant expertise, English as a second language, being under 18, a first sale, a translation | Title, genre and word count (the form asks), address, phone, payment details, a summary |
| Your magazine | Whatever its page says | Read into a list, free, by EdCitation's Check your paper |
The wording comes from Ploughshares (n.d.), One Story (n.d.), Strange Horizons (2026), the Adroit Journal (n.d.-b), SmokeLong Quarterly (n.d.), AGNI (n.d.), the Masters Review (2025) and Clarke (2020).
What the editors agree on
No summary: The Masters Review says a story that needs explaining is probably not ready. Few credits: Neil Clarke, who edits Clarkesworld, sets three as the most and would rather see none. And the page is the rule: Purdue's Online Writing Lab warns that ignoring a guideline is the quickest way to be turned down, even by sending four poems where three are allowed (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.).
Do editors actually read the cover letter?
Some read it last, and some never see it before they decide. Clarke reads cover letters after the story, so they cannot colour it, and writes that no story has been rejected for its letter (Clarke, 2020). SmokeLong's editors read anonymously and have no access to the letter at all.
Others read it first: The Masters Review (2025) calls the bio "the most important part of the cover letter". Either way the letter carries facts the editors must have, such as a simultaneous submission, and a bio they can print; Adroit says a bio on file makes life easier if a piece is accepted (Adroit Journal, n.d.-b).
When the letter can change a reading
Clarke names the few facts that may send a reader back into a story: experience the story draws on, writing in English as a second language, being under 18 (a parent or guardian then co-signs the contract), and a first sale. Strange Horizons asks for the first of these, with its example of a submarine story by a writer who served on one. If none applies, a line of thanks is enough.
Should you address the editor by name?
Use the greeting the magazine gives you. Where it gives none, editors disagree, and agree only that a wrong name is worse than none.
| Question | Yes | No, or not needed |
|---|---|---|
| Name the editor? | Adroit and Purdue: the genre editor, from the masthead | Clarke: skip the greeting |
| Mention a piece the magazine published? | Adroit and Purdue: one you admired | Not among what Clarke wants to know |
| Title and word count? | One Story, Strange Horizons, The Masters Review | Clarkesworld: the form asks |
| Contact details? | Ploughshares: name, date, contact information | Clarke: address on the story's first page, no phone |
Clarke's warning: a letter to Clarkesworld opening "Dear Sheila" shows it was meant for Asimov's, or was turned down there. Darren Chang, writing Adroit's guide to cover letters, suggests naming an editor and a piece the journal published, on one condition: "don't fake it" (Chang, 2019). Strange Horizons settles it for its readers: "Dear Fiction Editors."
Our view: copy the magazine's greeting where it gives one; otherwise use the name on the current masthead for your genre, checked twice, or "Dear Editors". Keep a line about a piece you admired only if you read it.
How do you write a bio for a literary magazine?
Write a few sentences in the third person, ready to print, within the magazine's limit: 50 words or less at Strange Horizons, generally no more than five sentences at Adroit. Purdue lists the usual contents: where you are from, where you study, your work, and any publications.
A cover letter with no publications
List none, and do not apologise. Purdue's answer to what to put with no publications is "nothing", and Strange Horizons says being unpublished is fine. Clarke goes further: editors like to be first to publish a writer, so say when a story would be a first sale. Chang (2019) adds that editors keep reading without credits or a writing degree.
What a student can put
Adroit's own sample bio is a student's: year, majors, university, two magazines and a website (Chang, 2019), and Adroit runs prizes for high school and undergraduate writers (Adroit Journal, n.d.-a). A prize or a student magazine is a fair credit; every workshop you attended is not.
Our example bio (made up)
Written for this guide; the name, university and magazine are placeholders.
[Your name] studies English and history at [university], in the third year. [Your name]'s fiction has appeared in [student magazine], and this would be [Your name]'s first story in a national magazine.
What does a literary magazine cover letter example look like?
Ours, made up for this guide: the magazine, editor, story and writer are placeholders. It follows the pattern most pages above share.
Dear [fiction editor's name, as on the current masthead],
Please consider my short story "[Title]", 3,400 words, for [Magazine]. This is a simultaneous submission, and I will withdraw it at once if it is accepted elsewhere.
[One line, only if true: an editor invited more work; the story draws on your own experience; this would be your first publication.]
[Your name] studies English and history at [university], in the third year. This would be [Your name]'s first published story.
Thank you for reading.
[Your name]
Notes on our example
- The greeting. Use the magazine's own form where it has one.
- The word count. Count as the magazine does: Strange Horizons rounds the word processor's figure up to the next hundred. Leave it out where the form asks for it.
- The middle line. Most letters need none. The Masters Review wants to know if its editors encouraged you to send more; Purdue suggests mentioning a personal rejection that invited you back.
A cover letter for a poetry submission
Name each poem, as Purdue's sample letter does, and send no more poems than the page allows. The rest is the same: greeting, simultaneous status, bio, thanks.
How do you mention a simultaneous submission in a cover letter?
In one sentence: the piece is a simultaneous submission, and you will withdraw it as soon as it is accepted elsewhere. Then do it. Adroit takes simultaneous submissions if you classify them as such and tell it promptly of an acceptance (Adroit Journal, n.d.-c); Ploughshares asks you to mark them and tell it immediately; One Story asks you to withdraw immediately. Strange Horizons takes none.
How to withdraw a piece
- Read how the magazine wants to hear: Ploughshares names a contact form and email; AGNI uses its own system, Subfolio.
- On Submittable, open the submission, choose Withdraw and type a reason, which the magazine receives (English, 2026).
- To withdraw one poem of several, send a message instead: Adroit asks for its Messages tab, not Notes, which only you see; AGNI has Add Comment.
- Keep a record of where each piece is.
A sent letter cannot be fixed
A sent Submittable submission cannot be edited unless the magazine allows edit requests; you can withdraw and send again, but a fee is not refunded automatically (English, n.d.). A cover letter saved in a Submittable profile does not fill in the forms either; you paste it each time (English, 2024). Check the letter, above all the magazine's name, before you send.
What should you leave out of a cover letter?
Leave out anything the magazine collects elsewhere and anything that explains or sells the piece.
- A summary or a pitch, and a full list of credits.
- Your name in the story file, where the magazine reads blind. SmokeLong wants nothing identifying in the document, its file name or its Submittable title; Strange Horizons wants no personal details in the story. The letter is where your name goes.
- Payment details. Clarke lists bank and PayPal details among things never to send.
AI and the cover letter
Magazines now refuse machine-written letters as well as stories. Strange Horizons bars cover letters written or edited by generative AI, allowing only basic spelling and grammar checkers that generate nothing. The Masters Review asks writers not to use generative AI for the letter, its first sight of their writing. AGNI will not consider work produced even in part by a large language model, and Adroit none that is AI-generated or AI-assisted. Four plain sentences are easy to write yourself.
How do you check a magazine's guidelines before you submit?
Turn the guidelines into a list, check the manuscript and the letter against it, then send.
- Paste the guidelines for your genre, and the lines on cover letters, into EdCitation's free Check your paper. Each rule it finds appears beside its sentence; lines it cannot test are listed separately.
- Tick the limits against the manuscript: words, number of pieces, file type, and whether your name may appear in the file.
- Write the letter from the list: greeting, title, word count if asked, simultaneous status, bio within its limit.
- If the manuscript went through rounds of comments, run it through Mechanics QA, part of Pro, which reports comments and tracked changes left in the file, and language slips.
What Check your paper made of Adroit's guidelines
On 3 October 2026 we pasted the fiction guidelines from Adroit's Submittable page, without their paragraph on AI, and its two sentences on cover letters into Check your paper. It found no rule it could test and listed eight lines as not checked, each in Adroit's own words, among them the bio request of "generally no more than five sentences".
A second run put Adroit's limits for each genre, from the top of its Submittable page, beside the same word-limit and cover-letter lines. This time it returned one rule, a word count of at most 6,000, with its source: "Fiction - up to 3 pieces at a time, 6,000 words maximum (across pieces)." The guidelines' other wording of that limit, "up to 6,000 words per entry of between 1-3 pieces", stayed among the lines not checked in both runs, and "Please no multiple submissions." appeared in neither list. Treat the checklist as a start: every line it shows is Adroit's own, and a line it skips is still a rule.
Where does EdCitation fit when you submit creative work?
EdCitation is the best tool for the part of a submission that is reading rules, because it shows its working: each rule comes with the magazine's sentence, and what it cannot test stays in a second list, word for word. In the Adroit run, that list carried the five-sentence bio limit, ready to check by hand.
- Check your paper, free with no account: instructions read into a checklist of word limits for each part, required headings, how many sources and how recent, the citation style, font, spacing and margins, each with its sentence. Checking a paper against that checklist is Theoretics QA, part of Max at $24 a month.
- Mechanics QA, part of Pro at $8 a month, three checks a month on a free account: formatting against the style, comments and tracked changes left in the file, citations, numbers and language. Its formatting follows a citation style, not a magazine's manuscript format, so match the layout to the magazine's page yourself.
- Cite a source, free: if a piece borrows from another work, which Adroit asks you to attribute and AGNI to declare, Cite a source builds the entry from the publisher's record, and Verify references checks a creative nonfiction piece's list.
EdCitation never writes a word of the story, poems, letter or bio, so every sentence the editors read stays yours. Plans are on Pricing. For the story, see how to write a short story; for an academic journal, a different letter, see how to write a cover letter to a journal editor.
Quick questions
How long should a cover letter for a literary magazine be?
Short: a few sentences and a bio. Strange Horizons caps the bio at 50 words, and Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld writes that a long letter usually means something went wrong.
Should I summarise my short story in the cover letter?
No. The Masters Review, Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld's editor ask for no summary, and Ploughshares says there is no need to describe the submission.
What do I put in a cover letter with no publications?
Nothing in their place. Purdue's Online Writing Lab advises listing none, and Clarkesworld's editor likes to know when a story would be a first sale.
Should a literary magazine bio be in the first or third person?
The third person. Adroit, SmokeLong and Purdue's Online Writing Lab ask for it, so the magazine can print the bio as it stands.
Can EdCitation write my cover letter or bio?
No. EdCitation never writes any part of anyone's work; its free Check your paper reads a magazine's guidelines into a checklist, so the letter you write meets them.
References
- Adroit Journal. (n.d.-a). The Adroit Journal submission manager. Submittable. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://adroit.submittable.com/submit
- Adroit Journal. (n.d.-b). Frequently asked questions. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://theadroitjournal.org/faq/
- Adroit Journal. (n.d.-c). Submission guidelines. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://theadroitjournal.org/general-submissions/
- AGNI. (n.d.). Submit. Boston University. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://agnionline.bu.edu/submit/
- Chang, D. (2019, August 9). How to write a cover letter for a literary journal, magazine, or publication. The Adroit Journal. https://theadroitjournal.org/2019/08/09/how-to-write-a-cover-letter-for-a-literary-journal-magazine-or-publication/
- Clarke, N. (2020, August 17). Short story cover letters. https://neil-clarke.com/short-story-cover-letters/
- English, P. (n.d.). How can I edit my submission? Submittable Help Center. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://submittable.help/en/articles/904890-how-can-i-edit-my-submission
- English, P. (2024, June 26). Update my profile. Submittable Help Center. https://submittable.help/en/articles/6645380-update-my-profile
- English, P. (2026, April 9). How can I withdraw my submission? Submittable Help Center. https://submittable.help/en/articles/904887-how-can-i-withdraw-my-submission
- Masters Review. (2025, July 24). Cover letters dos and don'ts. https://mastersreview.com/cover-letters-dos-and-donts/
- One Story. (n.d.). Submit a story. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://one-story.com/write/submit-a-story/
- Ploughshares. (n.d.). Frequently asked questions. Emerson College. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://pshares.org/faq/
- Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Submitting to literary magazines. Purdue University. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/creative_writing/writers/professional_resources/submitting_to_literary_magazines.html
- SmokeLong Quarterly. (n.d.). Guidelines. Retrieved 3 October 2026, from https://www.smokelong.com/guidelines/
- Strange Horizons. (2026, October 2). Fiction submission guidelines. https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/submit/fiction-submission-guidelines/