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Oct 2, 20193 min read
Common Fence: The Common Sense Approach to Deciding on a Piece
Your commentary is written. Your feedback to previous readers is done. All you need to do is forward the submission. You click “recommend...
Sep 30, 20192 min read
Rejecting a Piece Others Have Accepted and Vice Versa
What if you disagree with what previous editors have written in the internal notes? You read their elaborate explanations of why a piece...
Mar 29, 20192 min read
Dear First Readers:
By Pauline Paranikas As an executive editor, I spend most of my time on any given submission editing previous editors’ comments and...
Mar 29, 20192 min read
Taking criticism without hating the editor
By Cia Gladden and Jennifer Wang I’m a writer. It’s easy to think it while I watch my classmates suffer through draft after draft of...
Feb 1, 20196 min read
Finding your voice
By Adil Alvi, Emily Cho, and Jennifer Wang (Emily) There’s something intimidating about the concept of finding one’s voice. That’s how it...
Feb 1, 201910 min read
Teenage Philosophizing
By Alex Jones and Adil Alvi Advice on avoiding condescension, getting in the reader’s head, and helping young thinkers produce their...
Dec 31, 20184 min read
Writing non-repetitive general commentary
Ahh, the classics. Every genre has its own issues, its own tropes and cliches. Romance novels have meet-cutes, fantasy novels have...
Dec 31, 20186 min read
Justifying your commentary
Prior to the thrill of receiving their Submission Manager account and their very first submission, all Polyphony Lit editors undergo a...
Dec 1, 20185 min read
Mini-Post Series: My First Story
Seven Polyphony editors and Voices contributors collaborate to provide you with amusing narratives of the very first story they ever...
Dec 1, 20186 min read
Editing pieces that deal with difficult topics
As editors and readers for Polyphony Lit, we know our primary duty is to help our own rising generation of literary artists feel...
Dec 1, 20185 min read
Feedback 101: Compassionate Editing
Have you ever worried that you were being too harsh with your commentary? Three Polyphony editors are here to help. One of the most...
Dec 1, 20183 min read
Independently improving your own editing
It’s a conundrum that all editors face at some point – how can you improve your editing skills when you don’t know what your strengths...
Dec 1, 201811 min read
World falls apart as new reader pastes notes in wrong field
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." ~W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" Scenario #1: Your internal notes are essentially the same...
Nov 4, 20187 min read
Lombardo's Love for lowercase
By Anya Chabria and Kelly Farley There are a few mysteries surrounding Polyphony. Is it Polyphony LIT, Polyphony Lit, or Polyphony HS?...
Nov 4, 20183 min read
Avoiding Intimidating Yourself
By Grace Yue Editing others’ work can be a humbling experience. You look at his or her writing and think, I could never write anything as...
Oct 10, 20184 min read
Cracking the Enigma: Pieces You Don´t Understand
by Ore Amosu A Polyphony editor's worst nightmare: not knowing what to comment. You know the feeling you have when you can’t open a...
Oct 4, 20184 min read
Got Writer's Block?
by Anya Chabria, Emily Cho, Jodie Meng, Jennifer Wang, and Maggie Eames Even the best writers end up staring at the blank white page and...
Sep 27, 20183 min read
Remembering writers are people
Sometimes we forget that writing is human. Our authors' comments remind us that it is. By Kelly Farley Because Polyphony is based on...
Sep 20, 20185 min read
Welcome to Voices! - Part 1
Meet Voices' co-founder, Riley Grace Borden. My name is Riley Grace Borden. Some call me Riley, and others, Riley Grace (I’m not going to...
Sep 20, 20185 min read
Welcome to Voices - Part 2
Meet Kelly Farley: At four years old, I loved the color purple—so much so that I skipped down the hall with purple markers in both hands,...
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