Ever wonder what happens once your short story, poem, or essay is sent to a literary journal? At Writer’s Relief, we know it possibly ends up in the hands of an intern or volunteer reader. In this article on Bookriot, one intern offers the unvarnished truth about being a reader at a literary magazine:

“Moving things toward acceptance wasn’t much easier. We passed work we liked to another intern. If that intern liked it, they passed it to another intern. And if they liked it, one of the editors got it and made the final call. So it mattered little, dear author, if I thought your work was a masterpiece. A second or third reader who disagreed could kill it as easily as an editor. Once I got a submission that I thought was a great commentary on race, and another intern dismissed it because she didn’t see the “thematic relevance” – a very annoying phrase uttered so many times it ceased to have meaning.”

Read more of this intern’s tell-all article here.