Outlook Springs

Send us stories we can’t put down. Our emphasis is literary fiction:  “the Bigfoot's heart in conflict with itself,” as Faulkner famously  said. But we aren’t biased against genre. To the contrary! Experimental,  science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, minimalist,  maximalist, flash, etc., etc., are all welcome into our home, so long as  there is an emphasis on character and/or language rather than on  cleverness and conceit. Let us reiterate: character and language are  important. We want sentences radioactive with the bizarre, the  beautiful, the ugly—the world as only you see it. Surprise us. Break our  hearts. Humor is always a plus. Humor and heartbreak together? Oh, boy.  That’s a dream come true. Outlook Springs isn’t looking for merely competent stories—stories that are technically proficient but emotionally cold. Zap us with life.

In short: send us your best work. We can't wait to read it! 

Your poetry: we want it. All of it. OK, slightly less than all of it. Some of it. Up to five poems. For instance: have you written a series of poems based on the classic television show Coach? Were you compelled by outside forces (poltergeists, demons, etc.) to write a series of poems based on the classic television show Coach? Are you one of the stars from the classic television show Coach? None of the above?

Submit!  

Here’s what we want: poems that ooze with sonic pleasure. (Please, just remember to wipe the ooze off before submitting.) Poems that stagger from line-to-line with an animated corpse’s lingering bravado. As with our fiction, we’re interested in strangely human, humanly strange pieces, that captivate and scintillate. We want language that surprises us. Language with strong enough voltage to shock us back to life. Send us your finest work. That’s all we ask.   

We love creative nonfiction in all its forms and variations. Send  us your memoirs. Send us your Montaigne-esque ramblings. Send us your  travel narratives, your lyrical essays, your personal essays, and  everything in between. If it’s real, if it’s interesting, if it’s  well-written and gives us a new and exciting way to see the world (or –  even better—inside your head), then we’ll publish it. While we gravitate  toward traditional narratives, that’s only because the vast majority of  submissions follow those conventions. If your writing is non-linear,  experimental, or so far out there that you don’t even know what is it,  send it in; we’re always looking for work that is pushing the boundaries  of form and genre. If you’re funny, even better. Funny is not the  end-all and be-all of what we publish, but it doesn’t hurt.

Send us your best work.