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(Print) ISSN 2333-9969
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    • 2016 >
      • Manufactured Tears
      • Before It Is Written
      • Inducement
      • There Are No Carriages
      • Zertanzten
      • Mourning
      • Satin Sheets
      • Bodies Whole And In Pieces
    • 2015 >
      • December 2015 >
        • Arrowhead
        • Howling on for More
        • South of Nepenthe
        • What You Wish For
      • November 2015 >
        • Dogs of the Snow Country
        • The Oldest Girl
        • Cloud 99
      • October 2015 >
        • Footprints
        • This is Not a Love Story
        • The Other End of the Line
        • Yard Work
      • September 2015 >
        • The Gift
        • The Sleeping Season
        • The Golden Trinket
      • August 2015 >
        • The Snow Fell and He Thirsted
        • If Life Gives You Lemmons
        • The Culling
      • July 2015 >
        • The Angel's Song
        • Planet 50
        • Inheritance
      • June 2015 >
        • Ambisia
        • Bottomland Baby
        • Gronnvolk
      • May 2015 >
        • The Reflection in Her Eye
        • Guernica
        • The Speed at Which You Fall
      • April 2015 >
        • Garbonzo
        • Walking Weeping Prototypes
        • Bedside Manner
        • Sunny Side Up
      • March 2015 >
        • A Comfortable Well-Lighted Room
        • Gabriella
      • February 2015 >
        • Fairy Tales
        • Every Sunday Morning
      • January 2015 >
        • My Utility Belt
    • 2014 >
      • December 2014 >
        • Cataclysm
        • The Things We Hide
        • Return to Waypoint 5
      • November 2014 >
        • Bit by Bit
        • The Patchwork Girl I
        • The Patchwork Girl II
      • October 2014 >
        • Searching
        • Establishment
        • The Degenerate
      • September 2014 >
        • Maybe This’ll Be The One That Finally Gets Me
        • Gathering Gold
      • August 2014 >
        • Armed
        • Blood Melody
        • Fluttering in the Remains
        • The Imperfect Patsy
        • The Quickening
        • The Job
        • The Helmet
        • A Suitable Poison
      • July 2014 >
        • Til Death Do Us Party
        • Call for Help
        • Unfinished Things
        • What Pavel Found
        • The Girl in the Glass Case
        • Uncanny Valley
        • The Teachers Connection
        • Local News
      • June 2014 >
        • Jinn
        • Deficit
        • The Line of Fate
        • No Sleep Till Deadtown
        • Gladys Collins
        • The Cloud
        • Pigs Fry Pigs Fly
        • Ripples From The Weather Aggregator
      • May 2014 >
        • The Avatar Self
        • Boomtown Guide for the Perplexed
        • Bingo
        • Merrows
        • Crucible Invictus
        • Run
        • Snake Oil Rights
      • April 2014 >
        • A Lesson from the Road
        • Our Immortal Souls
        • Maps and Miracles
        • Tailing the Blond Satan
        • Best Baby
        • Into Open Hands
        • Drill n Kill
      • March 2014 >
        • The Way to ShangriLa
        • Scent of Darkness
        • 800
      • February 2014 >
        • Can and Should
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Things to Avoid

Please consider the following with your submission:
  • We can't use erotica. Authors could include sex, but it's not "the point"...
  • We don't enjoy gore. Tales might be violent, but not "slasher"...
  • We don't deal well with cruelty or indecent acts, especially against children
  • No writing exercises or workshop leftovers
  • Relationship breakups are over-used
  • Don't send work we've already declined, unless we specifically ask for revisions
  • Watch your word count and submit accordingly, no exceptions on limits
  • Your flash fiction should not have more than one point of view
  • We value the elevation from anecdote to narrative (this means your work is not an extended joke, a story fun to tell at a party/bar, and it's not conversational)
  • Character sketches are insufficient to carry a plot through to resolution
  • Fiction formatted as a letter of correspondence usually doesn't allow the reader to see past the narrative voice
  • We've never published a 2nd person narrative

Execution

Here are some concepts that attract rejection letters: 
  • previously published; previously rejected; tone not a good fit for us;
  • cliché; trite; shallow; sentimental; idyllic; supercilious; 
  • didactic; preachy; polemic; epistolary; topical; fable; melodramatic;
  • vignette; anecdote; reminiscent; familiar; bar-tale; pretentious;
  • unoriginal; unskilled; improbable; predictable; unfocused; shapeless;
  • uninsightful; unappealing; long; disappointing;
  • repetitive; clunky; disjoint; unpolished; undeveloped; plotless;
  • stilted; nonsensical; unclear;
  • overwritten; exposition-heavy; reflective;
  • proofread; dialogue; characterization; point-of-view;

A staggering list, if you think about it. You can avoid a lot of this if you just develop your material sufficiently. Check out the graphic provided by Bartleby Snopes this month for an analysis of over 160 rejection letters they mailed:
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