Electric Literature is seeking volunteer readers to join our editorial team! Electric Literature is an online nonprofit publisher dedicated to making literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Our weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, publishes a mix of original work, forgotten classics, and forthcoming excerpts, each with a personal foreword by one of today’s best writers.
Recommended Reading receives a large volume of submissions (1,000 during our last open period in January 2021), and a committed corps of volunteer readers is essential to helping the editors find new, unknown, and/or overlooked talent.
Responsibilities include:
- Reading ten manuscripts per week, ranging from 2,000 to 8,000 words each.
- Providing concise but thorough responses (one paragraph) to these manuscripts, with a clear YES or NO recommendation for each.
- Meeting weekly reading deadlines, and clearly communicating with editorial staff when scheduling conflicts arise.
This is a volunteer position that requires a commitment of approximately six hours per week for six to eight months. Readers will work remotely and on their own schedules (as long as they meet the weekly deadline).
Current readers are not allowed to submit their own work to Recommended Reading. However, they are free to submit to and pitch other sections of the site.
Discussion of submissions outside of Electric Literature is strictly prohibited, and will result in immediate termination.
Please submit your résumé, how you heard about this opportunity, and a two-paragraph response/critique of a story published in Recommended Reading via the application portal.
Those who advance to the second round of the application process will be asked to complete a reading test and a video interview.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis starting January 2021, so get them in as soon as you can! If you have any questions please email editors@electricliterature.com.
