LETTER

Literally Literary: Tuesday — November 5th, 2019
Susan B. Anthony is arrested for trying to vote. (1872)
Contents:
I. A New Editor!
II. Updates, Submissions, and Guidelines, oh my!
III. A Change to Our Editing Policies
IV. Top25 and Social Media
V. From the Start!

Dear Readers and Writers,
Yes, it’s been quiet on this end, but the publishing queue has been chugging along day and night. We’re so grateful to have you all reading and writing with us and we hope you’re having/have had/will have a wonderful day!
Putting together the Anthology, while still maintaining the impressive amount of submissions we receive, proved to be more exhausting than any of us imagined. I believe the work paid off as the book is fantastic! 276 pages of poetry and stories, not only carefully selected, but meticulously organized and indexed by the author’s last name (where available). Every aspect was designed and executed by your LL editor team. We’re pretty proud of it.
So, that’s us at the moment, a little quiet on the surface, duck feet beneath.
Now... to the rest of it…

I. A New Editor!
Yes, that’s right!
I’d like to officially welcome Jonathan Greene to the Editor’s staff! Jonathan brings with him a host of skills and talents that will complement and magnify what Literally Literary stands for. We look forward to his fresh perspective as well as his organizational and efficiency acumen, not to mention his skill as a writer!
Welcome aboard, Jonathan!

II. Updates, Submissions, and Guidelines, oh my!
Along with the addition of a new editor, we’re updating a lot of things here. Our Submission Guidelines and General Policies are still in effect, of course, though they will get the update treatment soon. There are no major changes that I am aware of at this time except those mentioned below, involving editing.
I would invite you all to go read through it and refresh your knowledge of our policies. There’s a LOT of useful information there, plus most of you check-marked it on the new writer form indicating that you’ve read and agree to the policies and guidelines, so it’s probably a good idea to make sure you actually did. We’re a good-natured bunch here, but violation of our policies by someone who checked that they read them and agreed to them tends to irk us just a bit.
I will always notify you whenever it is updated so you can make sure you are still in agreement with our terms.

III. A Change to Our Editing Policies
Literally Literary has re-examined its position on editing. It began as our way of reaching out and encouraging the writing community, maybe even helping some people discover their inner genius. A lot of people let us know how much they appreciated the attention. This seemed like a good thing — but a lot of people also let us know they did not appreciate this one bit.
I want to personally apologize to anyone who experienced more than just a minor typo fix, etc. to their writing without their consent. Sometimes when you’ve got so much coming through, you form habits, some good, some bad. It’s easy to get a little numb to the fact, when you go through hundreds, even thousands, of pieces, that each and every one of these poems and stories is someone’s art.
They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. This definitely started out with the best intentions. I’m now course-correcting before our handbasket gets to Hell. There has been no big stink, no big drama show, no public controversy or tabloid-worthy fallout. Some of our writers let us know how this impacted them and we’re acting to make changes to better host our wonderful writers.
Starting today the following policies are in effect at Literally Literary
Prose:
Editing will be limited to standard rules of formal writing. This only involves narration that is not “in character.” Dialogue and obvious character narration will not be ‘fixed’. Note that this is only going to affect those pieces with some minor editing issues. If it needs significant editing it will be returned to the writer for correction. We don’t have time to go through and document every little thing that may need correction (or clarification) when it’s more than a few, but we’ll try to highlight a few examples.
If a piece is returned to you, it is not a failure on your part, it’s just got some issues that should be simple and easy to correct. There are even some FREE services that help with this. I use Grammarly, personally (no, LL is not endorsing them or getting any sort of gain from mentioning them, it’s just what I, personally, use and I find it very effective).
Here’s the thing — poor grammar, typos, and punctuation may not matter to you (though it should), but if LL is going to host it, it’s going to have to meet certain expectations, as LL hosting it implies that we find it good enough, and if it looks like a child wrote it (unless you are a child, in which case WOW!) we’re not going to put it up there to say “Hey, these are our standards!” YOU deserve better than that.
So, please don’t be contentious if your piece is sent back for corrections. It’s not a judgment. Trust me, if a publishing corporation or magazine staff sees more than 1 or 2 goofs, they’re going to toss your hard work in the trash, so if you have any aspirations towards even a magazine article, this may help give you some perspective on the expectations in the publishing world.
Poetry:
There will be no edits to the content or format of submitted poetry without the writer’s acknowledged consent. The only exceptions to this are:
- the double spacing issue where the phone app does not allow you to single space, (this is up to the individual editor’s judgment)
- very obvious typos
Additionally, no poem is to be published with changes (other than those just listed) unless the writer has approved it.
This means there are going to be a lot more pieces we have to reject. This is really how things should have been from the start. We hate having to reject stuff, but the alternatives have proven far worse in the long run, and this is the only way we can maintain unquestionable integrity in what we do.
This does not mean we will not help, but it does mean we’re going to be spending less time on editing and more time on making LL the best it can be. If you want help, or an editor offers to help, and you give consent, go nuts. I can’t, however, guarantee an editor will have time (I know I have precious little these days).
If you submit a piece, from this day forward, and you find any content editing that violates what I have promised you here, please email litlit.feedback@gmail.com and let me know. I (Heath ዟ) am the only person who has access to that email box and I will not share anything you ask me not to.

IV. Top25 and Social Media
Work on the Anthology resulted in much of our other work kind of piling up and we’re still sorting things. It is a priority, at this time, to refocus the Top25 on our front page and our promotion of these pieces on social media.
Please remember, the default publishing rights allow us to link your writing on social media, so if you do NOT want to be featured you MUST let us know.

V. From the Start!
Don’t forget — From the Start: Literally Literary Anthology Vol. 1 is available for purchase on Amazon, both Print and Kindle versions! We priced it as low as they’d let us so that as many people as possible can get one of their bookshelves… or under a table leg… just get it in your home!
We’ve made it available to any country Amazon sells to (with future plans for more avenues of purchase).

That’s it for now! We hope you have a fantastic day!
As always, with our sincerest regards,

