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Send: transgressive works dealing with madness, sex, death, disease, and the like; the clash of archaic with modern day; archetype, symbolism, disaffection, surrealism, magical realism, irrealism, philosophy, existential, post and post postmodern flavoring; experimental or flagrantly textured language; alt poetry; alt poetry in classical form; intense crafting of language from the writer’s writer. For more direction, see our Recommended Reading List. Do not send: mainstream storytelling; rhyming couplets;
Oprah fiction; Internet/chat language and symbol-speak; poetry or fiction
without caps or punctuation; hot trends; genre fiction (including
horror, sci-fi, crime, western, vampire, romance, erotica, etc.) unless it
substantially transcends its genre; high school
fiction or poetry; chick lit lite; ethnic lit where hip ethnicity
supercedes universality; excess cuteness, wackiness or irony; first, second, or third
drafts (“I just wrote this yesterday and thought I’d send it to you”);
pieces that exceed our stated word count by thousands of words; work that is above
editing. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but please inform us AT ONCE if the piece is accepted elsewhere. If we decide to accept your piece and you tell us it has been accepted somewhere else, we will bar you from future submissions. Be professional! Previously published pieces (reprints) are acceptable only if you inform us of the fact when you submit. You, the author, retain all rights except First Electronic. Please send only polished final drafts; otherwise you are wasting your time and ours. All submitters should be aware that we do not post works, we publish them. Pieces should be submitted with the explicit understanding that minor editing may take place. Any writer rabidly averse to the standard editorial process would be better off submitting elsewhere. That said, we almost always go with the writer’s view if he or she feels strongly about a particular editorial change. We will most likely institute a form-based online submission process within the next year. Stay tuned if you are a frequent submitter. Short stories and novel excerpts should be under 4,000 words but we are somewhat flexible; however, we would never consider a piece over 6,000 words. Limit each prose submission to one piece every three months. Subject line of email submission must read “Fiction Submission” and should be addressed to “Fiction Editor” rather than any specific editor. Please send a two to three line bio with your submission. Please submit 3-7 poems (no length restrictions), and send a two to three line bio with your submission. Subject line of email submission must read “Poetry Submission,” and should be addressed to “Poetry Editor.” We are now accepting art submissions. Though most art for ALR is done by in-house staff, we will accept JPG samples from individual artists and will publish a Featured Artist's work throughout the site now and then. Writers should not send any photos/art with their literary submissions. Normal Guidelines: Generally, ALR accepts review copies throughout the year and publishes reviews in each issue. Publishers, publicists, editors, and authors may send Absinthe-appropriate books (see our material preferences for guidance) for review to our snail mail address. Please direct to Book Reviews Editor. Review copies should be mailed 3-6 months prior to the relevant issue’s pub date (see below). Please note: Submitting a book for review does not in any way obligate ALR to review it. With increased submissions of incredibly weak self-published books, we have been forced to review books or not based on a number of factors—including quality of writing, reasonable per unit price, appeal to our readership, basic design, etc. In addition, the sheer volume of submitted books makes it impossible for us to review all that are found worthy. For several reasons, we do not accept or review books in any electronic format. Subject line of e-mail submission must read “Fiction Submission”, “Essay Submission” or “Poetry Submission” as appropriate. Use of any other subject line may result in accidental deletion. We prefer Word or RTF attachments (PC platform) but will accept almost any compatible document form we can recognize /open, including text of e-mail messages, but excluding PDFs. Mac users would be generally well advised to submit in the body of an email. No ZIP, SIT, JPG, GIF, PDF, or EXE files please; they will be deleted unopened. See below for snail mail submission details. For the near future and perhaps beyond, we will not adhere to a fixed publishing schedule, instead publishing a full issue somewhere between 2-4 times a year. We accept subs year round, but would appreciate writers submit only once every three months or so. We respond to every submission so keep us updated on your present e-mail address! A fair number of rejections and an occasional acceptance come back as undeliverable. Feel free to contact us with questions. ALR issues payment for all accepted work. International writers should note minor exception below.*
As we are a non-profit online magazine and dependent upon the persistent vagaries of existence, we reserve the right to alter these payment guidelines at any time with or without notice (though any unlikely change would instantly appear here); however, we are deeply committed to paying every Absinthe writer. Payment will be sent out roughly 1-2 months post-publication, sometimes sooner. For online submissions, please include a mailing address for payment. *International Writers: We pay international writers as well, except in those extremely rare cases when postage costs supercede the amount of payment. International writers picked as the winner of the Absinthe Editors’ Prize will always be paid. We prefer e-mail submissions. Submit by clicking on the appropriate link below and attaching your submission to the e-mail form. Please include “Fiction Submission”, “Essay Submission” or “Poetry Submission” in your subject line or your submission may be deleted. If you have problems with the addresses below, you may also submit via snail mail. (Do not cut and paste the addresses below into an email send-to line; the @ symbol in each is an image.) Submit fiction to Submit essays to Submit poetry to You may also submit via snail mail, though we would prefer you include an email address and have an electronic version available for transmission if possible. (Having to retype an entire manuscript instantly creates two strikes against it.) Please do not send your only copy since all mail submissions will be recycled. Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope and/or e-mail address for reply. We will not be held responsible for submissions mailed without strict attention to these guidelines. We will also not be held responsible for submissions or SASEs with inadequate postage. Mail hard-copy submissions to: The
Absinthe Literary Review Please be aware: Though we have plans to eventually publish a print issue, we are at this time exclusively an online market. You will receive an e-mail informing you that your piece has been accepted. By submitting your work, you explicitly grant authority for ALR to publish your piece on the WWW for three to four months, to archive it online and with the Stanford-based LOCKSS system, a program designed to ensure that important online content remains permanently available to libraries, major universities, and other institutions. All other rights revert to writer after publication.
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