Another opportunity for writers

July 13, 2006 | 1 book mentioned

Last week I posted about the Gather.com contest to get into Amazon Shorts, and yesterday I got a note about another opportunity for writers that sounds interesting. This one is from the very cool online literary magazine Narrative:

For any of you who may have overlooked the Editors’ Note in our most recent issue, we’re writing to let you know that we are looking for short short stories. In conjunction with Robert Shapard and James Thomas, who edit the popular anthologies Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction, we’re planning a feature in Narrative to coincide with the publication of New Sudden Fiction, which will be forthcoming from Norton in January 2007. Our feature will present a collection of short short stories by both well-known and newer writers, and we’re inviting submissions of stories that run between seven hundred and fifty and two thousand words, or no less than three and no more than five pages in manuscript length.

Concurrently, Narrative is also seeking book-length manuscripts for serialization in the magazine. The details are available on their Submission Guidelines page (You’ll need to register before you can see this page).

There’s also a catch – isn’t there always? – Narrative charges a reading fee: $5 for the short shorts and $30 for book-length works. Not being particularly well-versed in the world of literary magazines, I don’t know how prevalent such fees are (feel free to enlighten me on this one), but for what it’s worth, my understanding is that Narrative uses such fees to pay contributors, fund a prize, and make the magazine free for all.

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.