Author Q&A: Do Literary Magazines Edit Your Work?

In late 2025, I had my first experience of a bad copyedit (in a technical sense) from a literary magazine. It's unfair to expect all literary magazines (often passion projects with multiple volunteer editors) to keep to the high standards of traditional publishing, but they should stick to the basic editorial principle of "Do No Harm."

Besides doing no harm, it's important that literary magazines approach editing as a dialogue or conversation—I asked around and heard that some smaller magazines sometimes simply tell writers they have to accept all copyedits if they want their piece to be accepted. Ultimately, this reproduces an extractive power dynamic, although leaning too far into editing as collaboration can involve extensive discussion about edits, which many magazine editors don't have time for.

If a magazine does copyedit (or developmentally edit) your work, these are the two principles I would hang on to: ensuring (1) no harm is done, and (2) approaching editing as a collaboration.

I asked my network, which includes magazine editors, what their literary magazine approach to or policy on editing was, and here is what came up:

tl;dr: Magazines vary immensely in their approach toward editing:

• Some magazines only accept texts that are publishing-ready. If they offer anything at all, it’s a light proofread. They play to their strengths and their resources—makes sense.

• Others offer developmental editing and copyediting rounds. And they’ve said that some of their most popular stories were rough around the edges and benefited a lot from this process.

• One bad practice is that some mags tell authors that their acceptance is contingent on them accepting their edits without any discussion. This is quite authoritarian: Editing should be a dialogue.

• There was broad agreement that the slush pile (the majority of submissions they receive) are nowhere near publishing-ready, so ensuring your story is ready, rather than submitting too early, will stand you in good stead.

• Some read author bios, others make decisions without any identifying info. Of course, if they read the bios, this makes it easier for authors who have already had a few acceptances and have started to build their platform.

• Editing can be quite haphazard, especially at smaller magazines; lit mags are often a passion project and the editors are often volunteers.