Submission Guidelines

The submission window for the June '09 issue of torches n' pitchforks will be from Thursday, March 30th - Sunday, April 30th 2009. We will accept submissions of poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, and  reviews from teen students nationwide.

Simultaneous submissions are permitted, as long as you let us know if your work has been accepted elsewhere.  Your submission must also include sending us two signed forms:

CONSENT FORM AND RELEASE  This form must be signed by your parent/guardian if you are under the age of 18.

 Original Work and Permission to Publish.doc This form must be signed by you.

 Send these signed documents (AND ONLY THESE DOCUMENTS) via snail mail to:

Torches n' Pitchforks Online Literary Journal

324 E. 1st St, Prineville, OR,97754

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE SENT VIA EMAIL IN A WORD.doc ATTACHMENT

With your e-mail, send a brief cover letter with your name, age, State of residence and your previously unpublished work with the appropriate label, POETRY, SHORT-FICTION, CREATIVE-NONFICTION, or REVIEW SUBMISSION in the subject line to:

editor@torchesnpitchforks.com

SPECIFIC GENRE GUIDELINES

In addition to the above mentioned deadlines, forms and submission processes, torches n’ pitchforks has a fairly rigorous set of content guidelines.  As you read this online journal, you may discover an emerging aesthetic. When you submit your original, and previously unpublished writing—whether fiction, creative nonfiction, reviews or poetry—please read the journal to get a feel for the kind of work that we publish. For Poetry, do not send more than 3 poems at a time, (or more than 6 pages, whichever comes first). Fiction and Creative Nonfiction submissions should have a tight narrative arc, and should likewise be 2,000 words or less.   Your level of craft in the use of language, imagery, character and conflict will be of high interest.

Reviews should be 1,000 words or less, and can focus on either music, books, film, art events, or other literary journals. See the link for a list of book titles and journals from which torches n’ pitchforks would eagerly enjoy submitted reviews. In your reviews, I want you to engage with the ‘hows’ in the craft of the work being examined.  Additionally, I want to know how this work has implications for an artistic individual’s (or community’s) evolving aesthetic. 

Visual artists should send a sampling of their work in the form of jpegs or .png files.  I would love to see your experiments with form and media here- whether it be painting, photographic digital design, or some other unknown conjuring.

For all submissions, please do not send us the only existing copy of your work.

DISCLAIMER: While the aesthetic of torches n' pitchforks encourages frank poetry/prose/discussion on sensitive issues of teen concern, t n' p is not interested in publishing work with dead language, namely random or gratuitous profanity, nor does it choose to showcase works that glorify violence, sex or drug abuse. 

COPYRIGHT:

Upon publication, copyrights return to and are retained by the Author or Artist with the following provision: if your work is republished, in another publication, anthology, or book collection, credit must be given to torches n’ pitchforks as the original publisher of the individual work. 

P.S. A Snobby Little Treatise on Form and Content

If you are so inclined, formal structures are welcomed, as long as the form is organically rooted and flowing from within the content of the work. What does that mean, you ask?  Good question.  That is a query worth concerning yourself over for the lifetime of your writing career.  If you come up with any cool revelations on this, please share them.  I am fascinated by the idea.

At the same time, it would be fair- regarding my previous comments on formal structure-  to admit my hefty bias against poems with end-lines that rhyme, unless they are an astute exhibition of a traditional form. (at the time of this writing, greeting card poems, or stories seemingly ripped from the plotlines of the Lifetime channel, are not included in the t n’p list [no there is not really a list] of acceptable traditional forms.)

It might also be useful to know that any poem that has the word ‘heart’ with the word ‘part’ anywhere near it will most likely be deleted with extreme prejudice, unless of course, you are referring to the part of your heart that glistens in the moonlight after being pierced by a stiletto heel. Depending on the mood I’m in (my wife says that I am a wild bunch of guys) I might even print the offending poem simply to have the pleasure of wadding it up and tossing it into my wood stove. Ah yes, the burning of art.  Has that been done before?  Was it a flawless specimen of the double-sestina in trochaic hexameter? I didn’t take the time to find out. But it will have glowed briefly— which is more than I can say for most of my poetry.  And yes, you’re welcome.  Don’t mention it.