I have been there and know exactly what you’re describing about building up the courage to submit. That hasn’t really gone away for me. I still feel that nervous energy when I submit, especially to my favorite venues — for me, right now, it’s This American Life. Sometimes the rejection gets to be too much. I grow bitter and refuse to listen to the show. I make vulgar rhymes concerning Ira Glass. But then I come around. I start listening (and submitting) again. I just have to keep hoping that one day I’ll crack that market, but here is the only thing one can guarantee about such things: We can only hope to succeed if we keep submitting. We musn’t give up!

TAL just changed the page that describes how to submit and it’s much less formal now. Or maybe it’s been this informal all along and I have just been doing it wrong. If I get a story on that show, you better believe I’m going to post about it here on the blog. I hope you’ll consider doing the same.

Best of luck, RuDee! And thanks for liking Junk on Facebook!

First, thanks for your candor and encouragement on this blog. It’s awesome. As a religious Modern Love reader…soon as you mentioned the hat, I was like, “oooh! The dad one!”

I’ve been building up the courage for more than 5 years to submit to the column. Your words here were the tipping point. Thank you.

~R

There was a contract, but it wasn’t a long process for me. We went back and forth on edits a few times and that was more process-y kind of thing that we did. The process for signing the contract was more of an afterthought–I was handed off to someone in legal–and the contract (the first I’d ever signed for freelance writing) seemed to be a standard agreement. I didn’t get notice before the piece was published, but I knew when it would go live. Dan told me early on that he wanted to publish it for Father’s day.

Hope that helps!

Looks like there are now some official requirements for submitting to Modern Love. Good luck!

Thank you!!

I only used a few words to introduce my piece. For venues like Modern Love, I like to keep it short, something pithy, like the tag line for a movie if I can come up with something sexy. If I can’t, I’m happy to just present the basic facts. I’ll say, “This is a non-fiction story,” or maybe I’ll include the word count. Dan Jones doesn’t ask for anything specific in his cover letters, but if an editor asks for something specific—say the word count, your telephone number, or whatever—make sure to include it.

I like to close with a short pleasantry. Maybe I’ll say, “I hope you like it” because I really do hope the editor likes my story, even if she can’t select it for whatever reason. I always like to be professional, upbeat. When you get right down to it, the publishing world is actually kind of small.

After the little pleasantry line, I start a new paragraph and add a little bio in third person. “Tim Elhajj writes nonfiction. His work has appeared in The New York Times.” Before I had anything published, I would drop the name of any published author I had studied with, even if it was just for a day long workshop. Keep in mind, this is what I do right now, but I change things as the situation dictates or my mood changes.

Cover letters for pitches or books are a little different, but the cover letter I am describing here is the one I use the most, sort of the meat and potatoes cover letter for submitting nonfiction essays to literary magazines. I hope it helps. Good luck!

First of all, I keep visiting your site over and over! It’s a wonderful to hear about your writing.

You mentioned how your submitted your essay for ML and I just wondered if you included a short cover note in your email? Or did you just let your essay speak for itself?