Query letters

So it's about that time for you to be drafting your query letters! Can you believe that you're about to send out your first submission?!

Below I've pasted my own query letter, which I sent to my first publication, The Iowa Review, almost exactly thirteen years ago, I'm just now noticing. Wow. A lot can happen in thirteen years.

Feel free to use this as a basic template for your own letter. They should all look basically the same.





                                                                                                                 2225 S. 27th Street
                                                                                                                 Lincoln, NE 68502
                                                                                                                 402-742-4150
                                                                                                                 Cindybojam1@aol.com

November 25, 2003

Fiction Editor

Iowa Review
University of Iowa
308 EPB
Iowa City, IA, 52242

Dear Editor:

Please find enclosed my short story, “The Sugar Shell,” for your consideration.  If accepted, this will be my first published story.

This past May I completed a short story collection entitled What the Good Is.   “The Sugar Shell” is the first of nine stories set in rural Idaho near the Teton mountains, where I lived for almost twenty years.  Currently I teach creative writing at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and also serve on the editorial staff of Prairie Schooner.  In the past I’ve read for The Idaho Review and screened poetry book manuscripts for Ahsahta Press.  In various workshops, I’ve worked with Robert Olmstead, Mitch Wieland, Greg Hrbek, Anthony Doerr, and Jonis Agee.  

A SASE is enclosed for your reply.  There is no need to return the manuscript.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Hand