Oh, cover letters. After 10 years and 22 issues, TSR has accumulated a mountain of them. They fall into distinct groups: the useful (name, contact info, simultaneous submission, word count, etc.) and the awesome. The latter is bursting with sub-categories, a few of which we showcase here. We hope you enjoy these excerpts from some of the numerous cover letters we’ve received throughout the years as much as we do.
Read Moreas he likes to call it, and we humor him,
though it’s really two rooms with a roof,
terracotta tiled and country styled,
surrounded by a moat six inches deep
to keep marauders at bay.
Our doctor gave us a decent prognosis, a reasonable chance to live. He said that if we did everything right: if we quit smoking, and ate green leafy vegetables, if we did the chemotherapy, and maybe a round or two of radiation, there was a reasonable chance we’d go into remission.
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It was the first time I’d had to think of God as something like a person, with eyes and, perhaps, hands. When I’d heard stories about God in church, He always seemed an awfully touchy character, so it made sense at the time that He wouldn’t want us acting above our station.
Read MoreOn the table behind him rusty Seagulls wait their turn. Silver Swans perch on the bookshelf. Sidewinders lie motionless on the floor. After breakfast he opens the window and sits down with a turn-of-the-century Peerless—steel, non-oscillating, thin spokes curved like heat waves.
Read MoreThere lives a woman who keeps her baby in a box.
She works as a letter sorter at the post office and keeps the box at her feet. Her parents died when she was young, leaving her with nothing but debt, and after a solitary upbringing she finds solace in her work and in her baby. Not one to gossip or flirt, she is able to sort the mail with one hand and tickle the baby’s chin, or check her diaper, with the other. Even when her mind is occupied with distribution routes and sorting codes, her hands remember what needs to be done.
Read MoreA Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah in GQ
Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang
(Here's one of the stories from the collection, Why Were They Throwing Bricks?)
Writing the Other: Intensely practical advice for representing other cultures in fiction by Corey Doctorow on boingboing.net
Soul Snatchers: How the NYPD’s 42nd Precinct, the Bronx DA’s Office, and the City of New York Conspired to Destroy Black and Brown Lives (Part 1) by Shaun King on Medium
Sarah Hall and Tessay Hadley in Conversation in Granta
Read MoreThis possibility really never
occurred to me. I knew it
could happen, but I assumed
I would be at home.
I pictured my own comforter,
my own ringed tub. Certainly I
thought I could stretch out. The woman
on the plane beside me works for you.
Not John Whalen.
Not John Whalen.
Not John Whalen.
Not John Whalen.
I always believed in blind dates, especially when arranged by my kid brother. He's the tall, good-looking one surrounded by beautiful people in the ad agency where he runs their biggest accounts. Then there's me, the bookworm—the divorced woman with two young boys holding down a job while juggling joint custody rules. You can image how little time I had to meet men.
Read MoreWith smallness; with the ritual scratch
of the aperture, the suctioning force of the wound,
the day pressed itself into the hours, a glance shot
askew and wrapping against the rocky shore
that breaks the water open like an oil.
The changes to the restrooms were similarly striking. In the men’s room, a woman’s sultry voice trilled out of an overhead speaker: “I love my luxe, luxe luxury brand. Sexy. Beautiful. Don’t you? Don’t you love me?” Then she started to scream.
Or maybe laugh. Leonard wasn’t sure.
Read MoreAcross the street from thy house, the mouth of thy neighbour’s garage yawneth open, revealing the full measure of thy neighbour’s goods. Thy neighbor doth labor singly, lading a white U-Haul pickup truck. His wife hath driven him out of his home on account of his sin.
Read MoreMud-colored outside,
sinuous, shaped
like an overgrown comma,
with gaps that reveal
a pearly spiral
like the brooch
my mother kept in velvet
and never wore.
Drawing and painting allow me to express myself beyond the boundaries of language. I feel especially inspired by nature—observing spontaneous patterns such as the veins of a leaf, the colors on a watermelon, or the sinusoidal movement of the river.
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