• 1 item, up to 5,000 words. We lean toward the swift/compact. 

Lyric(-al) and narrative(-ish) essay, form-blending & genre-bending, idea collisions, personal-ized history/journalism and memoir-that-expands-to-larger-issues: we're talking creative nonfiction. No academic studies, no lit crit. The internet's filled with short nonfiction, so surprise us.

We'll consider reviews/“reviews” of pretty much anything (including a Sweet Corn Festival or new talking-robot-toilet model), if they're funny, bizarre, and/or actually an essay.

*New for 2023   We cannot overstate how little taste we have for straight anecdote nor performances of suffering in the therapeutic-autobiographical mode. For heavy topics (DV, CSA, queer-bashing, racist abuse, self harm, famine, war trauma, etc.) we like when they're addressed through a highly crafted text—plenty of examples in our archive.* 

Things we've seen too much: cancer specifically, addiction, break-ups, "my coming-out story," grampaw's war diary, mi-ma's cookies, "that time kids at school were jerks to me," white savior-ism.

Things we've not seen enough: formal invention, adventures, minority perspectives, collective action/mutual aid, things from the Midwest, things outside the USA, truly weird crime, environmental disaster/success, tales from Turtle Island, puzzles & labyrinths, signs & portents.

Interpret these suggestions as loosely as you see fit.