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Style: Chapter 2: Details

Details, quite simply, are one of the most important parts of literary writing. The way writers use details—what they choose to present...

Erik Harper Klass

Jun 814 min read

Why We Don’t Query Journals about Submissions

We all do something like this: Submit a story to a wonderful journal. Try not to think about it (we know it’ll be a while). But then we...

Erik Harper Klass

Apr 142 min read

Style: Chapter 1, Section 3: Sentence Combinations

In the last two style essays, I covered relatively short, simple sentences ( §1.1 ) and their longer counterparts ( §1.2 ). Now I’m going...

Erik Harper Klass

Mar 1210 min read

Submitit’s Success Rate (An Update)

It’s hard to imagine that Submitit has been going strong now for over four years. Near the end of 2021 (around a year in) I wrote a post...

Erik Harper Klass

Feb 52 min read

"Cleaning" Returned Stories and Essays

When we return, via email, a story or essay, we will include several important steps—from saving the file, to dealing with our tracked...

Erik Harper Klass

Dec 6, 20246 min read

Thoughts on Creative Nonfiction

Ever since Submitit started handling creative nonfiction a few years ago, I’ve acquired the uncomfortable notion that many writers of...

Erik Harper Klass

Sep 25, 202416 min read

A Few Words on How I Edit

My Editing Philosophy Like all good editors, I’m concerned with those elemental, essential aspects of writing, including plot,...

Erik Harper Klass

Jul 14, 20245 min read

Submitit's Client Portal

Submitit has recently (July 11, 2024) introduced a huge update: an (almost) magical platform. While in the past, Erik and Christine used...

Erik Harper Klass

Jun 11, 20242 min read

Style: Chapter 1, Section 2: Long Sentences

For an introduction to these essays on style, click here .) In my last style post (section 1), I got into the art of writing short,...

Erik Harper Klass

Jun 2, 202414 min read

This Is an Essay on Run-on Sentences[,] and I Hope You Enjoy It

The above is from Jon Fosse's brilliant Septology . My corrections are ironic. First of all, I’d like to forewarn the reader. The...

Erik Harper Klass

Apr 21, 202417 min read

Erik Harper Klass Searches for Erik Harper Klass: Part 2

As some of you may recall, a few weeks ago I received an email from a certain Erik Harper Klass, which email contained a...

Erik Harper Klass

Apr 1, 20247 min read

Amazon Rejected a Review of My Novella (I Think)

A few days ago I received the following review of my novella . The review was sent anonymously—or, I should say, homonymously—to my...

Erik Harper Klass

Feb 26, 20243 min read

Style: Chapter 1: Sentences

A good first step in developing style is to focus on the structures and combinations of sentences. All the great writers seem to...

Erik Harper Klass

Feb 10, 20248 min read

Style Essays: Introduction

I am enamored of style. Style—that destination, that endgame, of what I call the writer’s craft —encompasses the quality of a writer’s...

Erik Harper Klass

Jan 27, 20245 min read

A Guide for the Formattingly Perplexed

Since part of my job is to work on—which is to say, less euphemistically, “to fix”—formatting issues with the stories and essays I...

Erik Harper Klass

Nov 10, 20236 min read

The Ephemerality of Literary Journals

(First of all, am I the only one who can’t seem to get enough of the word ephemeral ? It kind of rolls off the tongue. Never gets...

Erik Harper Klass

Oct 14, 20232 min read

1,001 Ways to Find Literary Journals for Your Story (Without Actually Having to Read Them)

(This post was published in slightly different form in Chill Subs .) A selection, based on personal experience: 1. Since my...

Erik Harper Klass

Jun 30, 20239 min read

The Possibly Impossible Task of Ranking Literary Journals

I wrote a post not long ago about how I evaluate literary journals , focusing mostly on smaller and usually newer ones. These journals...

Erik Harper Klass

Apr 5, 20236 min read

Why the Author (Usually (but Not Always)) Eschews Nested Square Brackets

Are you familiar with the prescriptivism vs. descriptivism debate in re grammar and usage? It’s a doozy. . . . The prescriptivists tend...

Erik Harper Klass

Feb 19, 20237 min read

The Two Commandments of Lit Mag Acceptances

When it comes to the ethics of getting work accepted at literary journals, the submission gods hath spoken, the prophet hath come down...

Erik Harper Klass

Jan 7, 20232 min read