PFN – Brink Literary Journal Open for Submissions Engaging the Theme of Obsession

Through Submittable, we accept a variety of hybrid work from work that resists categories, Nonfiction to Fiction, from Poetry to Translation.

We are interested in writing that presses boundaries by using more than one medium to tell a story; work that looks and feels different on the page. Additionally, we look for submissions that engage the issue’s theme and the notion of being on the brink. We’re open to a variety of approaches, but we’re not interested in sentimental or ready-made verse and will not accept any work that include racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or other forms of hateful language. Please submit only unpublished pieces and notify us if your simultaneous submission is accepted elsewhere.

Brink is open for hybrid and cross-genre submissions of any length and style engaging the theme of obsession.

At first glance, obsession indicates preoccupation. It gestures toward desire. Obsessions command our attention, motivate our actions, and are always top of mind.

But the etymology of obsession hints at a different story. The root of the word indicates the action of besieging, or, as we might say in today’s language, sitting. When you obsess, you place yourself before something—an object, a person, an idea, a task. This posture is not passive; it is active. Your presence is an investment. Your presence indicates your desire to absorb, encompass, and command. To learn.

Please note, we are not interested in stories of harassment, stalking, or unequal displays of power or abuse. Instead, tell us about your obsession with exoskeletons or your childhood obsession with reading the dictionary. Interrogate your obsession with tacos. What was the last thing you actively sat down to learn? Show us the space around obsession: what leads to it? What happens when it fades? Take us to the brink of obsession.

Poetry

Please send us 3-5 unpublished poems, totaling no more than 10 pages, in a single document.

• The poetry readers at Brink look for and are drawn to:
• Fresh, surprising, evocative language
• Poems that create their own atmosphere
• Formal inventiveness and adventurousness
• Poems with an emotional core
• Poems that enact or embody tension narratively, formally, or emotionally
• Poems that give us a new understanding of what a poem can be

Fiction

Please submit no more than one piece that does not exceed 3,000 words.

Nonfiction

We’re looking for work that reignites our idea of what an essay can do or be. We’re particularly excited about flash essays, ekphrasis nonfiction, lists, diary entries, erasures, manifestos, intense lyricism, auto-theory, translations, and revelatory ruptures in form and syntax that breaks, and remakes, language anew.

Please submit no more than one piece that does not exceed 3,000 words.