This Modern Writer: YOU Are Still Here: More From Your Cover Letters

You write from Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens and the other boroughs. You live in Belfast and Nottingham, Prague, Budapest and cities in northern and southern India. You’re in Georgia. So many of you are in Georgia. You’re in California and West Texas and Michigan and Florida and Illinois. You are in transition, living with your parents or friends or an ex-boyfriend. You are losing your home or buying a new home or building a place for your family with your own two hands. You tell us not where you are but where you will be and for one of you lucky writers, you will soon make your home in Buenos Aires. Some of you love where you live. Some of you do not and feel like you’re doing time. A select few of you are literally doing time and you thoughtfully include your prisoner number which so cruelly has taken the place of your name.

You are married and you are single and you are living with lovers or partners or pets. Sometimes, you tell us what your significant other does and you say things like I live with the poet or novelist and then your partner’s name. We find that so very romantic though we don’t know why. You talk about your children and many of you have not just one or two but four or five and we wonder how you ever find the time to get any writing done. You live in old farm houses and in the middle of nowhere and in tiny apartments on narrow streets and with four other roommates who do not do their fair share of housework. We have been there. We are glad to no longer be there.

You are very   smart people. You’re undergraduates and doctoral students and a surprising number of you teach literature and composition and creative writing and history at universities and community colleges and high schools. You have studied under famous writers and sometimes you tell us who and when and what you learned. You’re surgeons and media buyers and financiers and psychologists and graphic designers and full time writers (that we do envy a bit). Many of you are editors or readers at other wonderful magazines.

You continue to tell us where you’ve been published. Some of you are selective in what you share while others among you offer your entire discography, so to speak. Once in a while if you’re making a magazine’s name up because it sounds so fanciful. A few of   you who are   fond of quantifying your publication history, noting your work has appeared in dozens or even hundreds of fine journals. You are, perhaps, the Wilt Chamberlains of the writing world.

You pass your time in very unique ways. You like sitting on your patios sipping beer and knitting and playing pick up basketball and singing in the shower and being the center of attention. Some of you don’t believe in cover letters or author bios. You feel such things constrain your work as artists. You have opinions and favorite numbers and favorite colors. One of you is allergic to twitter and tweets.

You know our names and sometimes you use them and sometimes you spell them wrong and sometimes, we forgive you.

You are kind and generous. You compliment us and make us blush when you tell us you not only read what we publish but also love what we publish. Sometimes, you tell us in great detail which stories and poems have moved you the most, the how and why of that, and you ask how you might get in touch with your favorite PANK writers.

You want us to know your work is a good or great or perfect fit for us. Some of you explain why and some of you don’t. Some of you are right and some of you are not. Sometimes, you simply say, “Thanks for reading,” or “Enjoy,” or “I want you to read this.” You strong, silent types say nothing at all.

No matter what you write, each and every day, you let us know you are still here. You are still that big red arrow behind the smudged plexiglass on the great big map that is the writing world. We read you. We hear you. We know you are here.