Most events are installed on their deadline date, unless there is a long submission window or unless it's a rolling submission.
P=Poetry, N=Nonfiction, F=Fiction
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F – Rat Bag Lit Seeking Microfiction/Drabbles on the Theme: Funerary Raccoons
Starting with our launch of October 15th, we publish a new microfiction or drabble piece Monday through Friday on the Rat Bag Lit substack. Stories are available for free for 4 weeks, before switching to a subscriber-only archive.
A Drabble is exactly 100 words, no more, no less, with a maximum 15 word title.
This month’s theme is: Funerary Raccoons
Rats and raccoons go together like… well, something. We all like trash. Also, funerals. Probably? We don’t know what it means either. We want to read your spin on the theme. Do with it what you will. Open genre.
You can submit 2 pieces, if you’d like. If your submission has been declined, you are welcome to try again.
No cool-down period after publication – we’d be happy to read more of your work!
We will select a maximum of 13 pieces for digital publication in November/December – pays $1.
No reprintses genres and blurs the lines between literary and genre. Work that keeps us up at night, stories that make us laugh, and the strangest dreams that pop out of your odd little noggin. Bold ideas, tight prose, snappy dialogue, speculative elements. Something we haven’t seen and, hell, maybe something we’ll wish we hadn’t. Mysterious, haunted mansions, crackling campfires, electric space stations, lonely abandoned farmhouses. That story that you hold close to your heart but has been rejected a billion times, but you keep sending it out because you believe in it, damnit? Yeah. Send us that one.
Rat Bag Lit
Fiction that crosses genres and blurs the lines between literary and genre. Work that keeps us up at night, stories that make us laugh, and the strangest dreams that pop out of your odd little noggin. Bold ideas, tight prose, snappy dialogue, speculative elements. Something we haven’t seen and, hell, maybe something we’ll wish we hadn’t. Mysterious, haunted mansions, crackling campfires, electric space stations, lonely abandoned farmhouses. That story that you hold close to your heart but has been rejected a billion times, but you keep sending it out because you believe in it, damnit? Yeah. Send us that one.
Yes to aliens, alternate worlds, apocalyptic game shows, bigfoot, blue collar, cats, cemeteries, coming-of-age, cosmic, cryptids, cults, cursed objects, dark, dating fails, dystopian, elder millennials, embarrassing moments, female narrators, food service, gen x, ghosts, girl power, gothic, grim reapers, grumpy unicorns, fairytale revamps, found family, haunted mansions, hidden worlds, horror, humor, liminal spaces, mermaids, modern-day wizards, mythology revamps, occult, ordinary people finding portals, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, sad robots, secret societies, squishy soft science fiction, shitty roommates, snark, social commentary, silly, steampunk, stoners, swapped gender roles, supernatural, talking animals with bad attitudes, teenagers, time travel, tongue-in-cheek, underdogs, unreliable narrators, urban fantasy, weirdos, witchcraft
Probably no to action / adventure, all vibes no story, boring stories, children’s stories, celebrities, cliches, cozy, dead wife/husband/parent/partner, emotional manipulation, espionage, excessively purple prose, hate of any kind, historical fiction, humor that denigrates, kids with cancer, military fiction, modern politics, mystery, political satire, rage bait, religious fanaticism, sappy romance, sword & sorcery, thriller, tired tropes, tragedy, werewolves, vampires, zombies
We don’t want:
No AI-generated stories. If it didn’t come from the depths of your own weird brain, we don’t want to read it. We will not consider stories written, co-written, created, or assisted by AI and machine-learning languages such as ChatGPT. We do not use AI-generated images.
No hate speech. We aren’t interested in your bigotry, homophobia, racism, sexism, or transphobia, or anything along those lines.
No fan fiction. We won’t publish anything that violates someone else’s copyright. We’d prefer you come up with your own characters and worlds. The exception to this being mythological fiction, in which case, make it modern and interesting as you breathe new life into old (public domain) tales.
No hard-core erotica. I mean, if you send us something hot, we’ll read it, but if you make Ratty blush, we probably can’t publish it. That being said, we are not prudes. If you can walk the line without crossing it, by all means, send it in if you think it fits our vibe.
No hard-core violence and gore. We don’t want to read it, even with a trigger warning. Keep it off-page please.
DON’T SELF REJECT
If you love your story and think it fits our vibes, why not take a shot and send it our way? Worst case if you’ll get another rejection to add to your pile, and maybe we’ll love it.
We encourage submissions from traditionally unrepresented and/or marginalized writers.
Our readers would appreciate if you would please include any relevant content warnings at the top of your manuscript.