A method for optimizing the spectral distortion of an ultrafast pulse in a polarization-maintaining picosecond linear-cavity fiber laser with a one-stage fiber amplifier is proposed and demonstrated. The mechanism of control of the spectral distortion in the fiber system has been investigated. The experimental and theoretical results illustrate that the filtering effect of a fiber Bragg grating can effectively decrease the spectral oscillatory distortion accumulated by self-phase modulation. Injected into a Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier, the ultrafast pulse could produce high pulse energy of 1.2 mJ at a repetition rate of 1 kHz.