SASE question

The guidelines for a magazine I'm planning to submit to say that "all submissions become their property," which I'm assuming means they won't be returned.

So: should I enclose an SASE, and if so, what size? (The guidelines are silent on the matter.) And should I mark the manuscript disposable, or would that be redundant?

Well, I did it. I sent it with a small SASE. No cover letter, which is probably the height of idiocy, but I have a phobia of writing them.

At least I got the damn thing sent out.

Just an update . . .

Well, all my worrying was for nothing. They accepted the story! This is my first sale, ever.

It's in this month's issue of Smoke Signals. You wouldn't believe how my family is ribbing me.

I might as well add that the focus of the story is such that I could read it to my seven-year-old brother -- the only passages I felt obliged to omit had to do with religion (he's a very sensitive boy). I am fond of this particular stripe of fetish fiction: the fun of writing erotica without the hassles of writing sex.

gogoshire said:

Congrats!

Is this your first pub?

Click to expand...

Yes, excluding a lot of things I'd certainly rather were excluded. (A poem in an e-zine, devastatingly misprinted; an article in a church newsletter when I was a teenager; one of those %(#$*@& poetry.com anthologies . . .) This is my first print appearance worth mentioning, and also my first paid publication.

Thanks, everyone, for your kind wishes! This whole thing has been a real shot in the arm for me; I was almost ready to give up and go back to film school (if they'd take me; they probably wouldn't).