Okay, here's what the editorial guidelines for Dandelion say:
All submissions should focus on a specific type of department or feature, as follows:
The Dandelion’s Roar (all manner of short news items), Out There (travel), Whole Health (health and wellness), Sports Clinic (a sport introduction), Downtime (a sports personality profile), Relating (relationships as they relate to outdoor adventure), It’s Personal (a first-person essay), What Works (gear review), Full (food and nutrition), See Hear (media reviews), Balance and Strength (athletic performance), and Unsung (profile of a notable woman who is not in the media’s eye). There are no fitness, weight loss, or gym articles.
Features. Every issue features a theme to which all features relate. They include an outdoor fashion feature, an interview with a high-profile woman (actor, writer, performer, politician, etc.), an adventurous destination, a newsy, issue-related piece, and Yes You Can, where readers are challenged to undertake a new adventure.
...
Dandelion considers nonfiction manuscripts and queries. Writers who are new to Dandelion should send previously published clips and a resume. If these materials are to be returned, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with adequate postage.
Thing is, the story is fiction. It might otherwise fit into one of their categories, but it's certainly fiction because I never took that climb on that route.
Also, clips? None of my previously published material (legal articles, environmental analyses, one story for a neighborhood newspaper) would be in any way relevant.
All the cool kids are into pretending their fiction is non.
Do they take unsolicited?
t laughs hysterically
Basically, your chances of making the New Yorker over the transom as an unpublished author are nil.
If your clips show off your writing skills, they don't have to be relevant. If they're dry government submissions, probably don't bother -- instead, make the cover letter show you off.
I think you can plausibly claim that this is nonfiction about the experience of climbing.
Um, unpublished?
"Read Elizabeth Hanes Perry's most recent work at Salon...."
Electronic publishing counts.
Betsy, if you could tell us the author and title of that YA book, I can see if Greg can get the library system here to buy it.
It's forthcoming, Deena. R.L. La Fevers, THE FALCONMASTER
My creative writing teacher at Tulsa University was their Visiting Poet from Ireland. I don't really know what that means, other than that he took great pride in it and it was in caps whenever he said it. He tried to get a poem published in the New Yorker for about 10 years and finally gave up. Then, the year he taught my class, they wrote and asked him for one because he'd hit someone's list somewhere. He thought that was pretty funny, but, of course, sent it. He workshopped it in our class. I have no clue if it actually got published or not. I should maybe check on that.
eta: Betsy, I sent the info on the YA novel to Greg. He'll talk it up to the buyers for the YA section. It can't hurt and might help.
Wheeee! Just spoke with Ed Kaufman at M is for Mystery, and we have a booklaunch party date and time.
I'll post it up later. Happy!
I don't really know what that means, other than that he took great pride in it and it was in caps whenever he said it. He tried to get a poem published in the New Yorker for about 10 years and finally gave up. Then, the year he taught my class, they wrote and asked him for one because he'd hit someone's list somewhere.
That's pretty much what I'd heard -- getting attention from the New Yorker poetry editors is a lost cause until you're a big name elsewhere. It's like trying to get tenure in the humanities in Harvard -- they hire other people's successes, they don't tenure their own.
Garrison Keillor says he wrote for the New Yorker for a long time before they knew about it.
