Though we read cover letters with interest here at CR, they don’t really play a part in our decision-making process. Cover letters are kind of like internal organs. You don’t think too much about them unless they’re bloated or causing you pain. Sometimes we’ll receive cover letters in which authors try to sell us on a submission or explain the social import of their work (“My wrenching tale of an agave-harvesting desert hermit who nurses a mistrustful, snake-bitten coyote interrogates the conflicts and complications arising in the post-capitalist global marketplace”), or they’ll claim their work will change our lives (in the same manner the inventors of The Clapper© promised to change our lives but could never live up to the impossible dreams their infomercials engendered in our hopeful, longing bosoms). Of course, we would never dismiss a submission based on a silly cover letter, but we will admit, sometimes these hyperbolic efforts do bring us joy—especially the ones that come with photos and illustrations. In honor of the deep-down happiness a truly goofy cover letter provides, we invite you draft for us your most bombastic attempts at the genre. Make us impossible promises. Tell us it was your fiction, and not Jonas Salk, that rid America of Polio. Explain why your poems about losing your virginity in an Applebee’s restroom demonstrates the decadence and cultural decay of Western civilization better than The Wasteland.
Send us your imaginary cover letters, and we’ll award logo–emblazoned thermoses or slingpacks to our winners next week. To enter, simply post your comments on the blog by clicking the post title above. (Due to the volume of spam we receive, we have to approve each comment individually, so bear with us as we upload your entry.)
Dear editors,
Someone in your office wears strawberry flavored lip-gloss, or tends to enjoy strawberry flavored candies or beverages or even the weighty berries themselves. I have not included any poems or stories because my only wish is to receive a new rejection, sealed in an envelope stained with the smell of southern fields ripened too soon by summer. See, like all things that teeter so close to god-stuff, the smell fades, and you haven’t rejected me in months. I want to rub the fields and fields of strawberry-rejection in my beard, like farm children’s feet stinking and stained almost red by berry pulp. I mean, I want you to rub your feet in my beard.
Good day,
– E
I hold the secrets to the universe. I hint at these in my submission “Secrets of the Universe.” If you read my work very, very closely, you might be able to glean a tiny part of something big and cosmic. I mean huge, as in vast. Of course, if you want publish my story, I’ll just tell you the secrets.
Dear Editor,
I have laced my SASE—that strip part you lick—with deadly poison. A dilemma for you, no? Sure, my submission is crap, but do you dare reject it? [Maniacal laughter]
Sincerely,
Gus the Word- and Poison-Smith
Hi Editors,
Be warned: my characters are so vivid, so intensely real, they may start talking to you, even engage you in conversation! My scenes are so accurate, they may materialize before your very eyes (hopefully not while you are operating a vehicle). My words are so wordy, my punctuation so punctuated, my sentences so filled with sentence essence, they rise from the paper in a kind of literary mist that has proven beneficial to the sinuses. In short, my work maddens, disorients, heals. Especially around the equinox (why remains a mystery).
Yours in untold power,
Dinah
Dear Alistair (May I call you Alistair? I’m going to call you Alistair.),
Lately, I’ve been experiencing pangs of what can only be called ennui. This, along with the chronic illness I’ve suffered since childhood (tragically, the Spiritus Mundi saw fit to curse me with fallen arches) has led me to sequester myself in a heretofore unused wing of my estate, with only pencils and vellum to keep me company. Fortunately for you—as well as the literary canon— it has led me to produce what one person (me) has termed “the most brilliant prose since Delarivier Manley.” I’m sending along one particularly inspiring specimen, the presence of which would lift your journal to new heights should you choose to take it, which of course you will. Please send my acceptance letter first-class, as I have developed a moral allergy to parcel post.
Dear Editors,
The effort you’ve put into opening this envelope is really more than I deserve, and I’ll make no further demands on your time. Unfortunately, nothing contained herein is worthy of your attention. That you’ve already read the two previous sentences is embarrassing to me. Every word that follows is sure to be more hackneyed than the word that preceded it. It was during my attempt to make a large bonfire of all my writing that I half-intentionally immolated myself. My fiancée dragged me out of the flames, and the enclosed manuscript was stuck to my skin. I wouldn’t dream of bothering you with it except that she is withholding my morphine pills. My “life’s dream” and all, she says. I hope you have not read this far. I feel so much shame. Please stop. Lucky for us both, I am not expected to make it. Each breath is palpably shallower than the last. An SASE is enclosed for your reply. This is a simultaneous submission.
Your humble servant,
Bob
Dear editors,
I realize that a professional writer should distance herself from her work. Unfortunately I am unable to do so. I myself am still connected, internally, with a kind of ghostly umbilicus, to every poem I write even as these verses wend their way through the post to journals across the nation. If you find a gooey substance sort of like egg white on your desk, that is from my poem’s ghostly umbilicus. If you touch it, you are touching the product of my creative, womblike mind. I’m going to submit a lot of poems to your fine journal, so you may want to invest in some sanitizing wipes.
Fecundly,
Angela
What I say is true, but vast.
The enclosed manuscript entitled “Black Hole” was written during my six months trapped in a black hole (long story). It is set in rural Indiana and tells the deeply metaphorical tale of an East German cardboard car maker who time-travels to the home of an existential philosophy professor to design what is ultimately the present-day Nissan Cube. (Product placement is essential to the piece, as it reflects the capitalistic impact on today’s fiction market. And, also, because, coincidentally, I was sucked into the black hole in my rocket-propelled Cube.)
A direct descendent of the originator of all language, I have been called “uniquely pithy” on more than one occasion. However, the adverb “uniquely” disturbs me, so I rarely mention it. In fact, using it now just gave me hives. Yet I’ve been told I need to “promote” myself better, so I should probably also mention that the beauty of my prose has made doves cry.
I have been published so widely and in so many dimensions that it is impossible to share. Just think of Pi in a literary sense and you’ll begin to feel the vastness of my artistic impact on a plane far more advanced than any editor – even one of your obvious stature – could possibly comprehend.
Also, if you don’t publish my manuscript and send copies to at least 100 friends, you will face a string of bad luck for 13 years, including, but not limited to, frequent car trouble, poor cell phone reception, and a new parent company that insists you switch to an all-YouTube format. Ignore me at your peril. Have a wonderful day.
This letter is copyrighted.
Succinctly,
John Ethan Franzen (no relation)
Cover-letter scribes, you’ve outdone yourselves. You’ve all made us so happy, everyone gets a prize! Email us at editors@cincinnatireview.com to claim either a logo-emblazoned thermos, slingpack, or issue of your choice. Thanks for your stupendous contributions to the kooky-cover-letter genre!