From the Intern Desk

Technically, there are two desks. And two interns. And four eyebrows. You get the picture.

Here's the story:
If you sent your submission between October 1, 2007 and February 28, 2008 and haven't received a response yet, don't worry. Your work has not fallen into the slush pile and been forgotten. In fact, your work was so memorable that it is among the final manuscripts being considered by our editors for publication in Issue 43. Final decisions for the issue are being made this month. If you're among the finalists, you'll hear from us either way very soon.

Here's another story:
If you live in the Phoenix Metropolitan area and like going to art and literary events as much as we do, check out our new calendar. All upcoming events (even big ones outside of Phoenix!) will be featured on the right side of the blog under "Events," but the full calendar can be viewed here. If you know of an event we've missed, or would like yours featured on the calendar, leave us a comment or email us at hfr@asu.edu.

Now, how about a few helpful comments from the people who actually receive and sort your submissions. Things we like:

FULL, LEGAL-SIZED SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE.
When we respond, we use this envelope to send you a complimentary HFR bookmark. You like bookmarks. We like sending them. See where this is going?

SELF ADHESIVE ENVELOPES.
I suppose this is getting kind of picky. But, honestly, would you lick twenty or thirty THOUSAND envelopes from as many strangers?

And the thing we like the most:
PEOPLE WHO SPECIFY ON THE COVER LETTER WHETHER OR NOT THEY WOULD LIKE THEIR WORK BACK.
As interns, we spend most of our valuable time trying figure out whether or not our authors would like their manuscripts returned to them. The more you can do to draw our attention to this personal preference the better. Ex: Betsy, from WI highlighted that she would not like her work back. We published her just for that.*

But really, it's easy. Just say something like "please recycle the manuscript if it does not meet your needs at this time," or "please return my work if it does not meet your needs...

*We didn't actually publish Betsy.

That's all we've got for now. Thanks from intern land. We're off to pad our applications for the soup kitchen.

-Heidi & Dain