There’s a natural question that sits behind almost every submission: what makes a piece stand out? It’s an understandable thing to wonder. When you’re sending your work into a publication, especially one you care about, you want to know how to give it the best possible chance of being read, remembered, and ultimately accepted.
The honest answer is that there isn’t a single formula. There’s no checklist that guarantees a yes, no specific trick that will move your work to the top of the pile every time. What stands out to us is often something intuitive—a feeling that a piece is alive, engaged, and doing something real.
That said, there are a few things that consistently help a submission rise above the noise. Not because they make your work “perfect,” but because they show care, intention, and a willingness to meet us in the spirit of what we’re building.
Engage With the Theme (When There Is One)
If you’re submitting to a themed issue, the most important starting point is simple: make sure your work actually engages with the theme. This doesn’t mean you need to interpret it in an obvious or literal way. In fact, we often appreciate unexpected or unconventional approaches. But we do want to feel that your piece is in conversation with the theme in some meaningful sense.
The strongest submissions tend to treat the theme as a starting point rather than a constraint. They explore it, question it, complicate it, or reinterpret it in a way that feels personal and specific. What tends to fall flat are pieces that could be submitted anywhere, with no real connection to the issue they’re being sent to. When we’re curating a themed issue, we’re thinking about how the pieces speak to one another, how they build a larger conversation. Showing us that your work belongs in that conversation makes a difference.
Follow the Submission Guidelines
This might seem obvious, but it matters more than you might think. Taking the time to read and follow the submission guidelines tells us a lot before we even get to the work itself. It shows respect for the publication, for the process, and for the people on the other side who are reading your submission.
Guidelines are not there to create unnecessary barriers; they exist to help us review work fairly and efficiently. When something is missing, formatted incorrectly, or sent in a way that doesn’t align with what we’ve asked for, it creates friction that can be easily avoided. It doesn’t mean your work won’t be considered, but it does mean you’re starting at a disadvantage you don’t need to have.
In a space where many submissions are strong, small details like this can matter more than you might expect.
Your Bio Matters—More Than You Think
We read your bio.
Not as a formality, not as an afterthought, but as part of the overall experience of your submission. We’re not looking for a list of accolades or a perfectly polished professional summary—although those are welcome if they’re relevant. What we’re really interested in is you.
A strong bio gives us a sense of the human behind the work. It might tell us a little about who you are, what you’re drawn to, what you care about, or even why you wrote the piece you’re submitting. It can be simple, it can be creative, it can be personal. What matters is that it feels real.
This doesn’t need to be long or overly crafted. In many cases, a few honest sentences are far more compelling than something that feels generic or overly formal. Remember, we are real people reading these. When a bio gives us a glimpse of the person behind the submission, it creates a connection that extends beyond the page.
Take a Chance
You don’t need to completely reinvent literature to stand out. You don’t need to be shocking for the sake of being shocking, or experimental for the sake of appearing innovative. But we do encourage you to take a chance.
That might mean writing toward something that feels a little uncomfortable. It might mean structuring a piece in a way that feels slightly unconventional. It might mean allowing yourself to be more honest, more specific, or more vulnerable than you initially intended.
The submissions that tend to stay with us are often the ones where the writer has taken some kind of risk—not a reckless one, but a meaningful one. There’s a difference between playing it safe and writing something that feels true. We are far more interested in the latter.
Sometimes that risk pays off in a way you can feel immediately. Sometimes it doesn’t land the way you expected. But either way, it tends to create work that is more alive, more distinct, and more memorable.
Be Yourself
This might be the most important point, even if it’s the simplest to say and the hardest to fully trust: be yourself.
We can tell when a piece is trying to sound like something it’s not. We can feel when a voice is being shaped to fit what the writer thinks we want, rather than what the piece actually needs. And we can just as clearly feel when something is coming from a place of authenticity.
Authenticity doesn’t mean you need to share everything about yourself, or that every piece needs to be deeply personal. It means that whatever you are writing, you are doing it in a way that is honest to your voice, your perspective, and your way of seeing the world.
That honesty comes through. It always does.
At the end of the day, we are not looking for a specific kind of writer. We are not looking for work that fits into a narrow definition of what literature “should” be. We are looking for pieces that feel engaged, intentional, and real.
If your work connects with the theme, respects the guidelines, introduces us to you as a person, takes a meaningful creative risk, and stays true to your voice, you are giving your submission every chance to stand out—not by trying to be something else, but by fully being what it already is.