Policies and Practices

.

Reading

The Quarterly upholds a strict blind reading policy. This applies to readings of submissions by both the editors and guest editors. We don’t select work based on prior knowledge of an author or their publication history. Similarly, the editors do not select pieces – or give preferential treatment to submissions – based on our own personal relationships. If an editor is priorly familiar with a submission, it is read for consideration in the magazine by another member of the editorship.

However, there can be exceptions to this policy. The editors or guest editors may commission work as they see fit (as in Kill Fee or Daniel Scott Tysdal’s poetry section); exceptional sections or pieces like this will always be clearly designated as such. No unsolicited submission will ever receive a non-blind reading.

We do all of this to ensure that the work that appears in the Quarterly is chosen based only on merit and appropriateness for the magazine.

Editorial Process

In a nutshell: Each piece submitted to the Quarterly is read first by the editor-in-chief and the appropriate section editor. The editors select pieces to be submitted to the guest editors, who then decide what will be included in the issue.

The Editors: If we think a piece is good, we’ll pass it on to the guest editors. Note that “thinking it’s good” is not the same as “liking it” – we make every attempt to select work based on merit, not just our personal tastes (though in the end we’re only human). Writers should also note that we will not read work that does not conform to our guidelines for submission, and work that shows no evidence of proofreading pre-submission is what we use for kindling.

The Guest Editors: The guest editors’ responsibilities are to create a theme for their section, read all the work forwarded to them by the editors, choose pieces to appear in their section and edit those pieces with their writers.

Each issue has different guest editors, who get to decide how their section will look and read. This means that the editors don’t control guest editors’ selection processes or editing methods, though we always know what they are and will intervene if we feel they are unfair or out of line with the magazine’s policies.

Corollary/disclaimer: While the guest editors have control over their sections, the non-guest editors are ultimately responsible for the Quarterly and everything in it. If you’ve got anything to say about anything we’ve published, please talk to us about it, because we (not the guest editors or contributors) are the ones who published it.

Acceptance/Rejection

We don’t send form letters to submitting writers or contributors, ever. We also keep track of and write detailed comments about each submission we receive, whether accepted or rejected. Unfortunately, we can’t give your work preferential treatment if you resubmit it with changes made – our blind reading process makes that impossible to guarantee. The comments are there so that if we don’t accept your piece, you’ll always know why.

This isn’t just for writers; tracking and examining our decisions about your work keeps us honest and paying attention to our own rules and guidelines.

We respond to every submission twice: once to let you know it’s been received, and a second time to let you know our decision. We try our best to do this in a timely manner, but please keep in mind that there is only one editor dealing with all the submissions, so it may take a while for us to get back to you re: the status of yours. Patient writers are our favourite writers.

Compensation

We aren’t currently able to pay contributors, editors or guest editors for their work, but we’re working very hard to change that. If and when we have money, we will make every attempt to pay previous contributors along with current and future ones. Fair is fair.

Contributor Content

Any- and everything published in the Quarterly remains the property of the person or people who made it. All contributors have the right to reuse, resubmit, recycle or withdraw their work at any time.