Rory, we do thank God for Royal Mail. The continuing problem is Oz. I feel like an idiot trying to use the equivalent site for Australian post, and can't figure out what stamps to try to buy. Could we scare up some advice equivalent to yours from the other end of the world?

Here, in the nation's capital, IRCs are the real life equivalent of unobtanium. Can't be bought for love, nor money, nor even the promise of hot wild monkey sex. Kate has tried and tried, using all three of those currencies. She has completely given up. And she doesn't give up easily.

I've come to believe they are some kind of mythical beast, rumored, but never seen! ;)

Thanks,

Bill

It's hard to understand why this state of affairs has come to be, but somewhere in the last thousand years, people in the (now) US Postal Service (no longer Post Office) seem to have decided that catering to mail to-and-from those worthy other groups in the Universal Postal Union living outside our the merry US was no longer a high priority. Maybe in the Carter administration?

If you want something sent back home to yourself from Australia and, like me, you find the jet-propelled carrier pigeons unreliable, do as Rory says, only put Aussie stamps on your envelope. So easy!

Here is the link to Australia Post International where you can find out how many stamps worth to attach. I looked. It's $2.20 (Aus. dollars) to send an ordinary letter to the US.

I'm happy to send anyone a book of Australian stamps if you can't buy them online!

Cally

Thank you, Cally!

And, a NEWS FLASH: My husband yelled to me from the next room, "Are you SURE you can't buy IRCs online? Not from this page where it says 'International Reply Coupons' and 'available'?"

I am here to report that I went through all the steps and now have a printed-out order confirmation for five IRCs, ordered with a credit card. Go the the usps.com site and search "International Reply Coupons." I'm quite sure I couldn't get this far six months ago.

If I get an e-mail tomorrow that says, "Sorry, we don't really have these," I'll let you know.

Walter, this is what I suggest.

A. IRCs are phased out or being phased out at post offices around the globe. They are old-fashioned and expensive. Most PO clerks have never heard of them. In Sweden they no longer exist and cannot be cashed in. It is an extra burden for the editor to handle them. Don't bother with them.

B. You did not say which country, but I am guess Canada or England or suchlike. Check online to buy stamps from their national post office site. There you can also find current rates. Rates usually change only at the beginning of the year. Toward the end of the year, if you expect a long wait period, you can add a few cents/pence/etc more to ensure that you get a reply.

C. OR. A better mthod, IMO. Send an email to the editor and ask if you can send a disposable ms and get a reply via email. That is more and more common. Some mags (such as the Dark Horse in Scotland) state in their guidelines that they prefer this method. Others are amenable if you ask. Orbis for instance state in their guidelines that they will allow an overseas submitter to submit two poems (only two) by email. In these and similar cases, you needn't request permission.

State clearly in the cover letter what is going on. For instance, in a closing para:

• This is a disposable ms. As agreed in our email exchange of 2011-02-11, notification can be sent to myemailaddress@bestpoet.youbetcha.

If I have a longish cover letter (usually not) I highlight this important last line with yellow marker pencil to help the editor in his/her work. Otherwise, I would never highlight anything. Tidiness counts.

D. When in doubt, ask the editor. They are all nice people and you are saving them hassle, possibly money, by querying in advance. For instance, many will not open attachments. Others prefer them.

I am faced with this situation everytime I make a submission to a print magazine.

I expect it to be increasingly common for print magazines to state their policy for overseas submissions in their guidelines. The internet will force that development.

Should a magazine NOT be accommodating, there are many more fish in the sea. But it has not happened to me. Yet.

Trust me, even if your mom warned you not to trust women who say, "Trust me." Good luck with your submission.

Janice

Sorry Maryann. Just read your post above. If you have them, use them for mags that say they want them.

But remember that it is an extra burden for the editor to cash them in, one more red tape procedure. Stamps are better. Email is best. Query the editor when in doubt.

Good luck to you too.

Last time I tried, in Boston, I too was told IRCs aren't available. Manhattan at 4th and 11th is clearly the place to be.*

Things like this is why God created e-mail submissions.

Which leads me to ask, Rory or other editors here: why don't mags all take e-mails submissions? Wouldn't it be easier?

*Oh, I just read Maryann's posting -- online IRCs, how nifty!

For those of you who don't want to bother with IRCs, etc., it's possible to buy your printable stamps for SASE directly from the foreign (or national) post office and print it in the comfort of your home printer ...

SASE for USA: https://sss-web.usps.com/cns/landing.do

SASE for UK: http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/j...iaId=106700775

SASE for Canada: http://www.canadapost.ca/personal/tools/cst/intro-e.asp

SASE for Australia: a bureaucratic system of forms that'll most likely not work unless you live there. (But feel free, anyone, to prove me wrong.)

Cheers,
...Alex

Andrew,

A few reasons, probably. Partly to reduce the burden of being simultaneously submitted to by a hundred schoolchildren from Arkansas (etc) every day. I suspect, anyway. Some people submit to us so often, and so thoughtlessly, that I just put anything they send straight in the spam shredder. It clearly goes everywhere else they can send it at the same time. Sod 'em. It's also harder to send an angry response to a rejection via post, and wounded artists can't very well send a magazine a virus in the mail (unless they want to lace the envelope with arsenic or anthrax or something).

Another reason is that formatting often gets buggered up in emails, and attachments can carry viruses, so if you get a print sub it's probably going to be clean and look exactly as the submitter intended. I'd rather face the problems and encourage email submissions, but I understand why others might not.