Cover Letter Guidelines / Examples

This Side of West now requires submitters include Cover Letters with their submission.
  • This is to mimic the submission processes of most modern literary magazines, and will hopefully give students looking to publish their writing to other literary magazines a low-stakes place to practice submitting their work.
  • Cover letters should be simple. Below is an example of what an excellent cover letter submitted to This Side of West should look like:
  • When submitting (to either the Main Submission Period OR Prose & Poetry Contest), paste your cover letter into the body of your submission email.
Dear [NAME(S) OF EDITOR(S)],

I am writing to submit my work for consideration in This Side of West [SUBMISSION PERIOD]. Attached is a [GENRE] [TYPE OF WORK] of [WORD COUNT]. [If you’d like to include a content warning, do so here.][If this is a simultaneous submission, please note that here.] [If you’d like to self-identify any marginalizations, do so here].

Thank you for considering my work.

Best,

[YOUR NAME]
Dear John Doe and Jane Doe,

I am writing to submit my work for consideration in This Side of West Issue 21. Attached is a fiction story of 2122 words. This is a simultaneous submission.

Thank you for considering my work.

Best,

Mary Sue