About PHANTOM DRIFT
PHANTOM DRIFT: NEW FABULISM
Call for Submissions. Wordcraft of Oregon, LLC, announces that we are now accepting submissions for the first issue of Phantom Drift, an annual literary journal of new fabulism. Reading period will be December 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011. The journal will be a perfectbound, 120-160 page, 7.5 X 9.25 volume. #1 will be released October 1, 2011. We’re looking for flash fiction, short stories, poetry and prose poems. Poetry editor Matt Schumacher says, “I welcome work readers might label new weird, slipstream and/or fantastic…work that shatters or valuably distorts reality, whether this means surrealism, magic realism, fantastique, or bizarrerie.” Fiction editor Leslie What likes stories “that favor the unusual over the usual…stories that create a milieu where anything can happen.” We pay on publication ($25 for flash fiction up to 2,000 words and $50 for short stories 2001 – 6500 words, $10 per poem, plus 1 contributor copy). Full guidelines can be found on our website at: http://www.wordcraftoforegon.com/pd Subscriptions are $15 with free shipping if in advance of release date. Send payment for subscriptions to: Wordcraft of Oregon, LLC, PD Subscriptions, PO Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850. For more information, contact Managing Editor David Memmott at editor@wordcraftoforegon.com Fiction inquiries can be sent to Leslie at fictioneditor.pd@wordcraftoforegon.com and poetry inquiries to Matt at poetryeditor.pd@wordcraftoforegon.com .
FICTION GUIDELINES: 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. We are fond of Calvino, South American Magical Realism, and Talmudic legends. Kafka and Orwell now and will forever totally rock. Some contemporary favorite reads you might have missed include “Flying Leap” by Judy Budnitz, “Carmen Dog” by Carol Emshwiller, “Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot” by Robert Olen Butler, “Wild Life” by Molly Gloss, “Serial Killer Days” by David Prill, “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by A.S. Byatt, ” Riding the Red” by Nalo Hopkinson, “The Child Garden” by Geoff Ryman, and the “Interfictions” and “Polyphony” anthologies. The list of writers of stories we enjoy numbers in the thousands.
We accept simultaneous submissions if so noted, but request that you inform us immediately if your piece is accepted elsewhere. As a general rule we do not read previously published work, including work that appears on the web or in electronic format. Please send one fiction submission during each submission period, and we ask that writers wait for several weeks beyond the end of the reading period before querying about the status of your submission, though I will do my best to read and respond to work as quickly as possible. We request first North American Serial Rights and exclusive rights for six months following publication. We request permission to publish an excerpt of your story on our website. We pay on publication ($25.00 for flash fiction to 2000 words and $50.00 for fiction 2001-6500 words), plus 1 contributor copy and additional author copies at a 55% discount.Send your submission as an RTF or Word file to:
Leslie What, Fiction Editor fictioneditor.pd@wordcraftoforegon.com
POETRY GUIDELINES: As poetry editor of Phantom Drift, I welcome your submissions. 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 speculative, 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.
Apart from these considerations, content, language, and form remain quite wide open. Submit sonnet, abcedarius, prose poem, or lipogram. Send gothic, supernatural, steam punk, or science fiction. If you possess unabashedly strange, unpublished work which shows such unusual tendencies as these, Phantom Drift wants to see your work. Send us your weirdest verse in submissions of 3-5 poems, as well as a cover letter. Payment is $10 per poem and 1 contributor copy. Additional author copies will be available for 55% discount. Send via email to poetryeditor.pd@wordcraftoforegon.com or via snail mail to Poetry Editor Phantom Drift, P.O. Box 123, Rhododendron, OR 97049. If you send via snail mail, be sure to enclose SASE if you would like your poetry returned, as work will not be returned unless you do so.
