The Colored Lens is looking for a First Reader to join our team. All of us at The Colored Lens are volunteers, so this isn’t a paid position. There are significant benefits, though. Working as a First Reader gives you excellent insights into the editorial process as well as what editors look for in the slush pile.

We pride ourselves on our 100% personal responses, and aim to have a 1-4 day response time for rejections. To do this, twice a week readers are assigned a group of stories (typically 4-6, but it can vary depending on the length of the stories) to read in the next 3-4 days. Readers are asked to provide short personalized responses that include both positive features and the reasons it’s being rejected, as well as recommend, discuss, and vote on held stories. To facilitate this, readers need to be able to respond to emails daily.

If you are interested in the position, first send us an email at dawn@thecoloredlens.com giving a short overview of your writing experience and attach a writing sample. If you have submitted to us previously, you can simply direct us to your submission instead. We’ll respond to confirm whether or not to move to the next step which is to read a group of sample stories and write personal rejections for each of them, as well as to write a note of whether you would likely reject the story outright or pass it on for another read and why.