Hump Day Submission Carousel 14

#14: 4/28/21

It's Wednesday, so you know what that means! HUMP DAY SUBMISSIONS! Because it's easy to fall off the submission train during the week I'm presenting you with 3 cool and very different small journals currently open for submissions to save you research time! Pick one of the three journals presented and read some of the pieces in your genre. If you're not digging them, check the next journal. Don't agonize over it, if you're not enjoying the writing or you don't feel your writing would fit in there move along to the next journal. If none of them seem to fit... maybe next week? 

All journals this week also have deadlines this week, so get on them today! No bookmarking for later, you can do it!

Journal 1: Phantom Drift. Phantom Drift is a journal of 'new fabulist' writing in all genres. Click here for their submission guidelines. They read $3 submissions via Submittable  with an APRIL 30th DEADLINE! That's soon so get on it! 

Fiction: We are looking for fabulist flash fiction and short stories. We like stories that favor the unusual over the usual; we like stories that create a milieu where anything can happen. Stories can take the form of myth or fable. They can invent or suggest an unreal ambience or describe a realistic landscape gripped by a surreal or unexplained event... Poetry: I must warn poets ready to submit beforehand, however, that I have forsworn a promise to favor poetry of a sinister bent. Phantom Drift prefers poetry composed in the new fabulist tradition. As editor, I will welcome work readers might label new weird, slipstream, and/or fantastic. Poetry that demonstrates what Roger Caillois has referred to as “the impression of irreducible strangeness,” and that inspires what Franco-Bulgarian structuralist critic Tzevetan Todorov characterized as a “duration of uncertainty’’ between strange and marvelous explanations in the mind of the reader will be especially prized here. In part, Phantom Drift exists because its editors wish to found a journal devoted to work that shatters or valuably distorts reality, whether this means surrealism, magical realism, fantastique, or bizarrerie. We value writing whose imagination is unafraid to shift shape, writing that generates unique alternatives to and uncharted voyages away from conventional realism.

Journal 2: The Hunger. The Hunger is a biannual online literary magazine of innovative writing in all genres. Check out their guidelines here. As always I recommend checking out their newest issue (at least in your genre) before selecting pieces to submit to them. They read poetry for no fee via Submittable and have a MAY 1 DEADLINE, so no dawdling!

From Duotrope: "The Hunger publishes visceral writing. The theme of “hunger” is not confined only to food, but hungers and thirsts of all kinds: the craving for connection, the human need to be filled or emptied, the devastating desires that define our most alive moments. Hungers can be sexual, romantic, familial, individualistic, spiritual, creative, sorrowful, conflicted, humanistic, desperate, and/or existential. We are excited by the lyrical, the experimental, the strange, the uncomfortable, the vulnerable, and just plain, motherfucking honesty. Send us work that bleeds. We want to be devoured. We strive to create a writing community that is founded on principles of inclusion and diversity, and gives a platform to a wide range of voices. We encourage all people, regardless of race, gender identity, faith, sexual orientation, or political affiliation to submit."

Journal 3: Boulevard. Boulevard is an awesome print (and online) literary magazine that is very frequently featured in the 'year end'/'best of' anthologies. Check out their submission guidelines here. And of course, as usual, read samples from the most recent online features published in your genre to get a good idea of what they're looking for, and they read $3 submissions via Submittable in all genres. They have a MAY 1 DEADLINE. No dawdling! Doesn't hurt to try.

And while they are 'top tier', their guidelines also give a good reminder about the submitting process: It's about the writing. Or, specifically:

"Boulevard strives to publish only the finest in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. While we frequently publish writers with previous credits, we are very interested in less experienced or unpublished writers with exceptional promise. If you have practiced your craft and your work is the best it can be, send it to Boulevard."

Get your writing out there! You got this! I know it's mid-week, but spending just a little bit of time with reading well-crafted creative writing in the middle of the week it can keep your creativity a little fresher when the weekend comes around. I think, at least.

Also a gentle reminder that Sparked is reading submissions of writing from Notebooking Daily prompts, so send them work now! And if you thought this post was helpful, consider shooting me a buck or two for my own future submissions or to help pay writers for Sparked (which comes out of my pocket). No pressure though. I'm just trying to get better with the begging for pennies, submission fees in 2020 are pretty monumental and 2021 is shaping up to be just as bad!