PFN – The Muleskinner Journal Seeking Submissions on the Theme of Sabotage

Journal Sixteen
Sabotage

So fun to say.
It thumps like a shoe dropped into the gears. It smolders like a slow fuse lit under the floorboards.

For Journal Sixteen, we are looking for sabotage. Sweet or bitter. Large or small. It might be a quiet refusal, a deliberate misstep, a coded message, or a love letter never sent. It might be the body rebelling against itself, a system collapsing from within, a character who undermines their own desires. It might be the artist’s hand trembling on purpose, the poem that undoes its own logic, the narrative that eats its tail.

As always, we invite you to interpret this theme liberally—bend it, twist it, betray it. Sabotage it, if you must.

Send us your beautiful wreckage, your quiet detonations, your elaborate ruses, and your betrayals of self. We’ll be listening for the sound of gears grinding, the machinery silenced.

Do your worst. It’s Sabotage!

What we look for…

Muleskinner Journal accepts previously unpublished work only. Please use the following guidelines for your submission. Submit in only one category. Send no more than one submission per issue.

• Poetry: Any length or form. (1-3 pieces)

• Flash or Micro Fiction: max. 1000 words each (1-3 pieces)

• Short Story/excerpts from longer (previously unpublished) work: (max. 6000 words) Please include word count on first page

• Creative Nonfiction: (max. 3000 words) Please include word count on first page

We look for writing of all kinds that uses skill, wit, and determination to deliver the goods.  We accept and publish poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, micro-fiction, short scripts, excerpts from longer works, memoir, criticism, craft essays, artwork, journalism, and shopping lists.

We don’t care who you are, as long as you are the author of what you submit.

And, we hate to have to say this, but please respect yourself, your readers, and other writers, and do not do that silly and shameful AI thing.