Letter to the Editors Dear Editors, This letter is directed directly at you, you pundits of publication, you wizards of the written word, or oftentimes, losers of the literary landscape. If you are not an editor, that’s ok.  There may come a time when these professional pieces of advice may come in handy.  I have worked for and with small press and online publications for almost 6 years now. I can safely say I understand what a shit storm the editorial process can feel like. Too many submissions, not enough submissions, too many staff people, too many drunk staff people. I KNOW how it is. There are times when all we want to do is fling an issue together on our own time, whenever we actually have time. Many of us are working full time jobs, going to school, or performing in circus acts. We are strapped for time and lacking energy. We have every reason to slack on the "little things." All this I know, but I am writing this because it is in times of great emotional, professional and literary duress that we must cling to the strictures that keep us all sane, that guide our organizations to give contributing writers and their submissions, be they brilliant or pathetic, the respect and consideration they deserve, and this all starts with acceptance and rejection letters.  So here’s my little tutorial on author communication etiquette: If you're not going to respond to the rejects: let them know up front. Add a line to your website or a note in Publishers Weekly or set an autoresponse email clearly stating you only contact people whose work you're going to publish. If you do in fact have time to contact submitters, even when they write death poems about leaves falling, don't wait two years. Get back to them. Tell them their story was poop (nicely). Hopefully it will spur their talents in other directions. Secondly and MOST importantly- far more importantly because it affects me and you and all the other little magazines out there- get in touch with writers you're going to publish! Common sense, you're thinking? Well, apparently not to everyone. Release Form, acceptance agreement, prenup, whatever nomenclature your publication prefers, it is crucial to alert the writers that you will be publishing their work, get their permissions to publish it, and tell them when it will be published. I cannot tell you how many times over the past few years I have written an author to accept his/her story. The author is happy and overjoyed over the soon-to-be publication until suddenly the author sees or hears that the work in question has already been published somewhere else (The Corkscrew Gazette, The New Goblin Review, Etc.) and the piece we planned to publish is suddenly lost to us. It's unfair to the author, it's unfair to other magazines, and it's kind of AGAINST THE LAW. So don't do it. I'm going to say nice things about Twixt now and you will think that I'm bragging, but my family's from Texas and out there the saying goes, "If it's true, it aint braggin'." Twixt has very positive relationships with its contributors. We like to get back to them. We make every effort to respond to contributors, and even give comments to those that we don't accept. I'm sure that when we hit the big time, and we are getting triple the submissions we get now, it will be harder to be as generous with our time, but we're always going to get back to our contributors, and try to give people a second of our time since they've spent much more than that preparing submissions. We will always find a way. If you can't say that about your own publication, then shame on you. It's hard enough to get any respect as a small press or online publication as it is, and you make all of us look bad.  Respectfully yours, Sarah Haufrect Managing Editor