Hey all! I'm another of the editors at last leaves and wanna chime in here cause I love this discussion! I am the one who sees every email first and reads the cover letters and sets up our tracking spreadsheets and stuff. I LOVE reading cover letters! While Kiera is right and we never reject for lack of cover letter, there have been cases where knowing from the cover letter that English is a second language or that it's a brand new writer or a six year old submitting art with her grandpa, does change the way I view the submission. At Last Leaves we don't read completely blind, and knowing details about the author definitely can sway us to yes. And, let me reassure, the only thing with cover letters that sways me to no is when we get a submission that's literally a blank email without even a "hi editors my poems are attached."