Cover Letters

As with any piece of writing, it’s important to consider your rhetorical purpose when crafting a cover letter. Though the creative work itself is our primary concern when evaluating a submission, a cover letter is (often) our first introduction to the writer. Through the cover letter, we gain (a small bit of) insight into who the person is behind the prose and why CRAFT sprang to mind as a potential match.

Short and sweet is our motto. Cover letters should include your bio. If you’ve been published elsewhere, note a few of your favorites. We’re not expecting an exhaustive list or CV. If there’s a piece we’ve published recently that you loved, that’s nice to include, as it tells us that you have at the very least a cursory understanding of what we do publish, but it’s not necessary.

Don’t summarize your story, or include information that’s vital for understanding the work. Your cover letter will not be published alongside your piece, so if you worry a reader might not get it, it may not be ready for submission. But most importantly: Don’t use AI to generate a cover letter. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and the last thing you want your cover letter to do is make an editor wonder if you’ve used AI in generating your submission, as well.