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Manuscript Consultations

The editorial staff of Electric Literature is excited to offer manuscript consultations periodically throughout the year. This opportunity extends to writers of all experience levels.

Availability: Check the Electric Literature store for staff availability. Consultations will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Several slots will be reserved for members at a 5% discount. Learn more about becoming an EL member here.

Editor Selection: Bios of Electric Lit editors are below. Writers now have the ability to select which editor they prefer to work with, though selections are not guaranteed. Editor Kelly Luce offers written feedback only, including in-line notes, an editorial letter, and follow-up via email. All other editors offer in-line notes and a video call.

Timeline: Once you have purchased a manuscript consultation, you have until September 30, 2025 to submit your manuscript. Each writer will receive detailed marginal notes and a 30-minute video or phone call with their editor, to be completed by December 31, 2025.

Deadline: This opportunity is available until September 30, 2025, or until the 15 available slots are filled.

Manuscript consultations may be purchased for $300 through the Electric Literature. Members who did not already receive a private link to purchase the discounted consults should email editors@electricliterature.com to request the link.

Writers who have previously completed a manuscript consultation with an EL editor are eligible to purchase a revision consult, which includes comprehensive re-review, with detailed notes and a 30-minute video call for a revised version of a previously submitted manuscript. The fee for a revision consultation is $150.

Members: Enroll here (password required).

Instructions, Requirements, and Details

  • In lieu of a cover letter and author bio, please include a paragraph or two about yourself to help us to get to know you, and your progress with the submitted work. Where are you in the revision process? Is there anything specific you would like help with? Please also note whether your submission is fiction or nonfiction.
  • Manuscript consultations are available for short fiction and essays up to 6,000 words.
  • Writers may submit one short story, one essay, or an excerpt of a longer work totaling up to 6,000 words. To give the work the attention it deserves, we ask that writers do not submit multiple short stories or essays.
  • Other than word count and formatting, there are no application requirements. However, in order to get the most out of your consultation, we strongly encourage you to revise your manuscript independently and submit as polished a draft as possible. 
  • We reserve the right to decline to review work for any reason, without explanation, at our editors’ discretion. If your manuscript is declined, a full refund will be issued.
  • Each manuscript will be assigned to an EL editor from the roster below. We are not able to accommodate requests to be paired with a specific editor, though if you have previously purchased a manuscript consultation, please let us know if you would prefer to continue to work with the same editor, or be paired with someone new, and we will do our best to accommodate your preference.
  • Writers who receive manuscript consultations will not be given preferential treatment for future submissions to Electric Literature, and are required to adhere to our regular submission guidelines. 
  • After you purchase the manuscript consultation in our store, we will send you a private Submittable link to submit your manuscript.
  • To purchase a manuscript consultation as a gift, simply forward the confirmation email that contains the submission link to the gift recipient.
  • Manuscripts should be double-spaced in 12 pt Times New Roman font, and should include the author’s name and email address at the top. Please number your pages.
  • When you submit, please use the following format for naming your file: FICTION/NONFICTION_Title of Piece_Last Name.

This opportunity will also serve as an important fundraiser for Electric Lit, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Proceeds will be used to pay staff salaries, writer fees, and help us continue to edit, nurture, and publish over 500 writers annually.

Please send any questions to editors@electricliterature.com.

Editor Bios

Kelly Luce, Editor of The Commuter

Kelly Luce has 15 years of experience editing both fiction and nonfiction. Former positions include the Editor-in-Chief of Bat City Review and an editorial assistant for the O Henry Prize, where she read every short story published in 2014–15. She served as Electric Literature’s Essays Editor from 2015–2018. In 2018, she became the Editor-in-Chief of The Commuter, where she acquired and edited Vanessa Chan’s “The Ugliest Babies in the World,” which later became the title story of Chan’s story collection in a major two-book deal. Pieces Luce has edited have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Essays, Best American Fantasy, the O Henry Prize Anthology, the Wigleaf Top 50, Best Small Fictions, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and won a SAJA Award. She has taught novel writing for Writing Workshops since 2018. 

Kelly is also the author of the story collection Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail and the novel Pull Me Under, a Book of the Month Club selection and one of Elle’s Best Books of 2017. A first-generation college student, she earned her BA from Northwestern University, an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers, and was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her fiction has been supported by the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and appeared in The Sun, Chicago Tribune, Salon, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, and other publications. She is the winner of the 2023 Wachtmeister Award from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.

Halimah Marcus, Executive Director and Editor of Recommended Reading

Halimah Marcus has been a fiction editor since 2012, when she co-founded Electric Literature’s weekly fiction series, Recommended Reading. Over the last decade, she has worked with hundreds of writers, including AM Homes, Weike Wang, Sheila Heti, Helen DeWitt, James Hannaham, Laura van den Berg, Charles Yu, Etgar Keret, Ben Marcus, Maggie Shipstead, Nathan Harris, and Catherine Lacey, as well as many other established and emerging writers. Stories she has edited have gone on to be included in Best American Stories, Best American Mysteries and Suspense, Best Australian Stories, the O Henry Prize Anthology, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. 

Halimah is also the editor of Horse Girls (Harper Perennial, 2021), an essay anthology that reclaims and recasts the horse girl stereotype, which was a New York Times “New and Noteworthy” pick. Her own short stories have appeared in Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, BOMB, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. Andrew Sean Greer selected her short story, “The Party Goers,” from The Southampton Review as a distinguished story in Best American Short Stories 2022. Halimah has an MFA from Brooklyn College, and lives in Kingston, New York.

Willem Marx, Assistant Editor

Willem Marx has been affiliated with Electric Literature since 2022. Currently, he acquires and edits essays and short fiction for Recommended Reading. Recent work includes “AI Can’t Gaslight Me if I Write by Hand” by Deb Werrlein, “Friendship is My Writing Process” by Ana Hein, “Nonfiction Isn’t Flase, but Who Says It’s True?” by Laura Moore, and “Poppy” by Hope Henderson. Among the many other authors he has worked with at EL are John Freeman, Amitava Kumar, Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Sam Wachman, Issa Quincy, Case Q. Kerns, and Mariah Rigg. Willem is also the editor and curator of Asymptote’s quarterly Nonfiction Section where he acquires and edits essays in translation.

Willem’s editorial perspective is informed by the craft of translation, dramatic writing, and the previous roles he’s held across literature and theater. He was a bookseller and events manager at McNally Jackson and Paris’ Abbey Bookshop, an intern to W. W. Norton’s Alane Mason, an editor to playwright Adriano Shaplin, and has directed and stage managed Off-Off Broadway plays, including Circles by Gamal ElSawah. His own writing has appeared in Asymptote, Necessary Fiction, WIRB, and elsewhere.

Wynter K Miller, Managing Editor and Editor of Recommended Reading

Wynter K Miller began her editing career in academic publishing with a focus on narrative medicine and bioethics. She was a senior editor for the UC Davis Law Review, where she acquired and edited scholarly manuscripts for print publication. During her tenure, her own writing was recognized with four Witkin Awards for Best Essay, as well as an honorable mention for the Hopkin’s Award, awarded annually for publication of the most accomplished work. Her writing appears in Washington & Lee Law Review, Tennessee Law Review, and the UC Davis Law Review, among others. Wynter also worked for several years developing and editing manuscripts now published in top-tier academic and medical journals, including the Annals of Internal Medicine and the American Journal of Bioethics. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in the Department of Bioethics, where she edited manuscripts, provided developmental editing for works in progress, and published her own work. 

Wynter now applies her editorial expertise to fiction and creative nonfiction. She was the Managing Editor of Forum Literary Magazine and in that capacity worked on fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Wynter has worked at Electric Literature since 2021 and previously served as a contributing editor, the Interim Books Editor, and the Associate Editor. She is currently the Managing Editor, as well as an editor of Recommended Reading, where she acquires and edits fiction. Her editorial focus is on finding and elevating work submitted via open submission; recent pieces include “The Last Unmapped Places” by Rebecca Turkewitz, “The Oracle” by Joanna Pearson, “Group Sex” by Elisa Faison, “Dumb Animals” by Alastair Wong, and “What a Body Is Good For” by Allison Grace Myers. Wynter has a JD from the UC Davis School of Law and lives in San Francisco.

Denne Michele Norris, Editor-in-Chief

Denne Michele Norris was previously the Fiction Editor of Apogee Journal. In 2017, she acquired and edited “Eula,” the first published story in Deesha Philyaw’s award-winning collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, and “An Almanac of Bones”, the first published story in Dantiel W Moniz’s acclaimed collection, Milk Blood Heat. In 2018, she became the Fiction Editor at The Rumpus, where multiple stories she edited were awarded the PEN Robert J Dau Prize for debut short fiction, and she worked with writers such as Alejandro Varela, Hilary Leichter, Tyrese Coleman, Zak Salih, and Jade R Jones. In 2021, Denne Michele was named the Editor-in-Chief of Electric Literature, where she spearheaded Both/And, a groundbreaking series of 15 essays written by trans and gender nonconforming writers of color, all edited by a trans woman of color. As Electric Literature’s Editor-in-Chief, Denne Michele is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication.

Denne Michele’s writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, VCCA, VONA, and the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction. Her short stories appear in McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, SmokeLong Quarterly, and ZORA, and in the anthologies Everyday People: The Color of Life, published by Atria Books, and Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her short story, “Where Every Boy Is Known and Loved” was a finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions Prize. Her debut novel, When The Harvest Comes, is out now from Random House.    

Katie Henken Robinson, Senior Editor

Katie Henken Robinson has been with Electric Literature since 2022, where prior to her role as Senior Editor, she served as Social Media Editor and Associate Editor of Nonfiction. She currently acquires and edits interviews, reading lists, and essays, with a primary editorial focus on personal narrative. In her time at Electric Literature, Katie has worked with authors such as Sarah Gerard, Edgar Gomez, Cleyvis Natera, Rafael Frumkin, and more. Her editorial perspective is shaped by nearly a decade of working across the book industry: from publishing to bookselling to teaching to editing. In previous roles, Katie worked as a literary assistant and co-agent at Trident Media Group, where one of her primary responsibilities was writing and honing pitch letters; a bookseller, buying assistant, and event host at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn; and a creative writing Teaching Fellow at Boston University.

Katie’s own writing has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Grist, Prism Review, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2025 Tennessee Williams Festival Fiction Contest, and her short stories have been finalists for numerous prizes and awards, including the Hopkins Review Stephen Dixon Prize and the Missouri Review Perkoff Prize. She received her MFA from Boston University, where she was awarded the Robert Fitzgerald Translation Prize for her work in Italian to English literary translation. She currently lives in Brookline.

Preety Sidhu, Associate Editor for Recommended Reading and The Commuter

Preety Sidhu is Electric Literature’s Associate Editor for Recommended Reading and The Commuter, and was formerly a Marketing & Editorial Assistant at EL. She acquires and edits fiction, including recent stories “Housemom” by Hannah Gregory and “Blood Makes a Bad Dye” by Samantha Xiao Cody. For two years, she directed the Muse & the Marketplace national writing conference, which hosted over 600 manuscript consultations with leading literary agents and editors annually. During that time, she also curated over 100 sessions on the craft of writing and business of publishing, and conducted in-depth and career-spanning keynote interviews with authors such as Ingrid Rojas Contreras, RF Kuang, Victor LaValle, Rebecca Makkai, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ottessa Moshfegh, Steven Rowley, and Maggie Shipstead. She served as an editorial assistant at The Southern Review literary journal, where she helped to acquire and edit fiction and nonfiction. Over a quarter of the prose pieces published during her time there were anthologized or honored in the Best American series, and additional pieces won the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Preety holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University. She has volunteered as a mentor editing MFA application materials for writers from historically marginalized backgrounds. 

During her decade-long career as an educator, Preety taught fourth grade through college undergraduate students in subjects ranging from astronomy and extraterrestrial life to literature, composition, and journalism. She was primarily an upper and middle school math teacher at independent schools in the New York and Boston areas. Her own graduate-level academic and research backgrounds in astrophysics and social neuroscience inform the story structure craft deep dives she writes on her Substack, Lit in One Sentence.

Meredith Talusan, Board Member and Contributing Editor

Meredith Talusan was the founding Executive Editor of them. at Condé Nast, where she edited both new and established writers, including Alexander Chee, André Aciman, Amber Tamblyn, Michelle Tea, Bryan Washington, and Brandon Taylor. She has also been a contributing editor at Catapult and is a current contributing editor for Electric Literature. She teaches in the MFA Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence and has taught at Tin House Summer Workshop, Lambda Literary Retreat, and BANFF Centre for the Arts.