Review Appeared in The Writer Magazine, October 2005
Submission and Revision Tips On DVD
By Stephanie Dickison

For a long time now, writers have had to rely on books, magazine articles and the occasional video for writing advice. While this has certainly served us well, there is something to be said for technological advances.

Elephant Rock Productions has changed all that with the recent release of two DVD titles, Submit! and So, Is It Done? These DVDs will inspire you to stay up all night sending out query letters and tackling that unfinished novel sitting in your desk drawer.

Submit! is all about submitting your fiction and nonfiction work to magazines. While most writing books focus on mainstream markets, Elephant Rock brings us electronic magazines and zines, as well as all the glossy, specialty and genre titles. After many years in the business, I was surprised to find publications I had never heard of—and ones that were right for my kind of work!

Featuring lengthy interviews with magazine writers and editors, Submit! gives you a real sense of how to pitch a publication and what editors are looking for in a query letter. Note to writers: “What editors are looking for” is as vast and varies as you might imagine; for example, one editor might want a short letter of only a few lines, while another might want to know if you have an MFA. Consider yourself well armed with this two-disc DVD set in hand. Editors from The Atlantic Monthly, Ellery Queen, Cricket, Other Voices and other magazines are featured, and writers Joe Meno and John McNally take you through their experience of writing and submitting work for magazine over the years. Being able to watch these people on screen, I think, really makes a difference. You see they are regular folk just like you, and that can ease some of the initial intimidation of querying a magazine.

In So, Is It Done? host (and acclaimed writer) Janet Burroway gently coaxes you in writing—and then revising—your work. Like you favorite teacher from school, she encourages you to work harder than you ever imagined, partly because she believes in you and partly because you want to make her proud. Burroway talks about revision and criticism with class and grace. Along the way, the DVD features a “go to” button that takes you to an area with further information and exercises.

Editor Holly Carver and writers Rosellen Brown, Robert Olen Butler, Ron Carlson, Elizabeth Dewberry, Patricia Foster, Michael Martone, John McNally and Elizabeth Stuckey-French share their experiences on how they revise. You see pages of scratched-out paragraphs and scrawls of notes in margins, just like in your own work. With five rounds of revision that you can tackle on your own or with a group or class, your work will be polished and ready to send off in no time.

These DVDs will inspire you to write and submit and revise and submit and do it over and over again until, before long, you have been published in magazines, journals, newspapers and zines. Isn’t that what you have always wanted? Me too.