I Sent This Letter to a Literary Magazine. This Was Their Response. Was I Wrong?

An honest question about AI, art, and editorial courage.

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Sometimes you write something not to get published but to start a conversation.

A few weeks ago, I came across a literary magazine I’ve long admired. Witty, strange, and sharp, they’ve published talking sandwiches, haunted voicemail transcripts, and office memos from the undead. My kind of place.

Then I saw their new submission guideline:
“We accept no writing aided in any manner by AI.”

No conditions. No nuance. Just flat-out rejection of anything that even touched a machine.

That hit something in me. Not because I think AI should replace writers, I don’t. But because I believe honesty matters more than orthodoxy. And if writers are now forced to lie about their process just to be read, we’ve got a bigger problem than technology.

So I wrote them a letter. Not a pitch. Not a submission. A letter.

I’ve pasted it below, exactly as I sent it.

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The Letter:

Dear Editor,

I come to you not with a submission, but a heresy.

Your guidelines are a riot, equal parts charm offensive and institutional trauma response. I read the whole thing. Even the parts about genital spam filters and ironic punctuation thresholds. But somewhere between “do not title your piece ‘My Funny Experience’” and the recurring references to insect invasions, I hit the hard wall:

“We accept no writing aided in any manner by AI.”

No conditions. No nuance. No space for what kind of aid, how much, or what counts as “help.”

Which means this letter, and likely any future work of mine, is persona non grata , not because of what I write, but because I sometimes use tools that reflect, provoke, or restructure what I write. Tools that are now branded taboo.

I understand the instinct. There’s a flood of grey goo out there, content churned out by prompt-farmers trying to manufacture “funny” the way offshore firms once manufactured clickbait. Nobody wants to read the AI version of “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers,” where seasonal rage is reduced to pumpkin-scented pablum. Nobody wants to see a machine rewrite “I Regret to Inform You That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been Cancelled” with all the charm of a warranty notice.

But you didn’t publish those pieces because they were machine-free. You published them because they had voice. Perspective. Teeth. They were human not in origin, but in effect. They worked. They hit. They lingered.

So why not hold all submissions to that same standard? If a piece punches you in the gut, if it lingers like old regret or half-digested wasabi , why should it matter if its scaffolding involved a machine? Why should authors be forced to lie about their process to earn a fair read?

Writers have always used tools. Pen and paper. Typewriters. Friends. Fumes. Spellcheck. LSD. Misremembered childhoods. Are we really pretending the purity of prose lies in its untouched lineage?

A policy like yours rewards those who can afford to work in aesthetic isolation. It draws a moral line around methods and enforces it without context. It doesn’t ask what was made, only how.

You're better than that.

Your publication has always been a refuge for the misfit voice, the satirical monologue delivered from a submarine, the letter to an interdimensional complaint desk, the unhinged corporate memo that collapses into poetry. You’ve published stories told from the perspective of dinosaurs, haunted AI assistants, and sentient sandwiches. You didn’t fear oddity. You curated it. You amplified it.

But this blanket ban feels like a step back into the kind of editorial superstition we’ve spent decades mocking.

And yes, there is one concern in your policy that deserves light: the issue of training data. These models are often fed on copyrighted work, unpaid labour (it feels dishonest to edit my British spelling out), and the creative compost of generations, scraped without consent. That’s a moral wound. A real one.

But that’s not a problem with writers. That’s a problem with the model-makers. Punishing the artist for the sins of the system is like banning paintbrushes because someone stole the bristles. If we want accountability, let’s demand it at the model level, with transparency, licensing, and reparations where due, not by excluding poets trying to make something honest from the debris.

Your publication has always punched up, never down. That’s why I’m writing this. Not to be published. Not to be forgiven. Just to remind you that refusing to read what might move you, solely because of how it got there, isn’t editorial vigilance.

It’s editorial fear. And I don’t think you’re afraid.

So let the work speak. Let the words stand naked and nervy. And if they don’t burn bright, reject them. But don’t bar the door because of the tools used to light the match.

Sincerely,

Simian Smith

Their Entire Response:

Hi Simian,

Thanks for the look but we do not publish anything that deals with submissions to our website so I am going to pass.

Best,

That’s it.

No engagement with the argument. No curiosity. No discomfort shown, no questions asked.

And that’s fine; they’re allowed to pass.

But it did leave me wondering…

Was their response proportionate?
Is it fair to challenge policies, or does doing so cross a line?
Should editors respond when their own editorial values are questioned, or is silence the standard?

This isn’t about dragging anyone. I’m not naming them here on purpose.
It’s about something wider: what kind of dialogue are we actually allowed to have right now?

If you're a writer, an editor, or just someone who cares about the future of language, I’d love to know what you think.

Drop your thoughts in the comments, or reply directly.

Let’s have the conversation they wouldn’t.