Q: Give a brief third-person biography:
A: Melinda J. Combs’ essays have appeared in Women’s Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives and Far From Home: Father-Daughter Travel Anthology. She also has pieces forthcoming or in Fourteen Hills, Silk Road, and Credo: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing. She is the co-author of In Service to the Mouse, the business memoir which chronicles Jack Lindquists’ thirty-eight years with The Disney Company. Her fiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Fiction Southeast and others. When she’s not working, she tries to surf.
Q: Who are your favorite authors?
A: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Aimee Bender, Karen Russell, Peter Mathiessen, Harper Lee.
Q: What’s the best piece of advice you can give that submitters should take to heart?
A: Give your piece time to sit, then revise, then sit, then revise. Don’t rush the revision process. But don’t be too afraid to submit either. I think something most submitters do is make the mistake of rushing the process or being too paralyzed to submit at all. It’s about finding balance and courage.
Q: A large portion of our demographic is made up of emerging writers. Do you have any tips for emerging writers seeking publication?
A: Don’t let “emerging writer” become your fear. Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone.
Q: What are the most common mistakes submitters make? What is your criteria for an “auto-reject” submission?
A: The most common mistake is not following directions (like not using the font they request or being anonymous, for example) and not reading at least a few pieces in that journal to see what they publish. I’ve heard stories of editors getting poems when they only accept flash fiction, for example.
Q: What is the ideal submission?
A: I don’t know about this since I don’t run a journal. But from my friends who are editors, they would say one that has a strong voice, a unique take, and no cliched writing.
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