How long do you take to reply to submissions?

The short answer is within 12 weeks. Choosing an EXPEDITED submission will move this to within 14 days. The fancy-pants answer: whilst we pride ourselves on our reactions- sometimes within earshot of a jab from some effin 24-carat dudo that looks like Mike Tyson, scrambling on The Egg Ropes- we receive a high volume of submissions so cannot always be speedy with our response. Sometimes we’re in that Tyson ball-park. We’re sitting on the sofa, eating chips and watching football and we’ll blink at submittable and see a sore-thumb flapping on the shores. It nods and we nod and we all keep eating chips and watching football. Other times we’re in the office with a Stiff Antoccino and we’re Rocking In The Waves Of The Sun, sucking the words through our pores like a thorny lizard. The words take time. We let them settle before revealing themselves as The Small I Am, The Silent Creeper, who would have thought it? This one said that. Typically then, we have no real typically.

When do you publish your issues?

We publish sporadically, because the quality of submissions is sporadic by nature. We can go large periods of time without accepting a piece and then accept a bunch in a day or two. For this reason, we don’t impose limitations on our publishing schedule: it would severely impact the quality of the magazine. Instead, we release each issue the minute we have everything ready for it. In this way, you see the work as soon as it’s ready! To give a more concrete idea of how frequently we publish, we can say that in our first year we published 6 issues, so we publish with a mean frequency of 2 months. Our deadlines reflect this sporadic nature too – they are frequently extended so that we can find you and your work.

What is your editing process like?

Expect a minimal style. We know the toil that typically goes into writing. It is likely you chose to send your work as a final product. Things tend to either work first time or not. Playing around too much with something can be an indication that something is fundamentally off. These are our views only. We know that other litmags like to wrestle with your work, nosy beggers.

What are your publishing rights?

We ask for first serial rights. It makes no sense for people to be going elsewhere to see you. We’re monogamous like that. Slutty is not immediate in our publishing minds. We will ask for 6-months with you. Then you can go and sleep with others, but please tell them about your first and superior time.

Do you publish first time / unpublished authors?

Absolutely. It’s one of our favourite things. We ask for cover letters and bios but we typically only read these after considering the work. You might have published in The New Yorker, but that was the past. Now, now, now. Invent yourself and then re-invent yourself.

Do you pay?

For a long-time we were able to pay our contributors. The difficult times at present means we are back to saving to pay our contributors: you can help us to do so by selecting add ons such as ‘Tip Jar’ on your submission.