FICTION SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN! ~ Out of the Gutter Online

By Matt Louis

Out of the Gutter Online is live, fully staffed, and taking fiction submissions in both the flash fiction and short fiction categories.

The gang at The Flash Fiction Offensive has been packing boxes all week, preparing to move their operation into the larger communal structure of the online incarnation of Out of the Gutter, and their U-Haul just pulled up to the curb. I can now see, through the smudged, cracked glass, David Barber getting out, looking badly hungover, unshaven, eye blackened...

Added to this we have set up an office in one of the larger storage rooms and moved in Court Merrigan to oversee the newly-minted short fiction department. By "short fiction" we mean, to be as specific as possible, fiction between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Since the material will appear on glowing, electrified screens, longer stories, however ingeniously written, can get to hurting people's eyes after ten or fifteen minutes, so for the good of all the writers who want their work read to the shocking conclusions, and all the readers who don't like to blink convulsively and fight dizzy spells while they enjoy rape and murder tales, we are keeping the longer stories relatively short.

There will, however, be a monthly feature entitled "The Big Story," edited by the guy behind the big desk, the cigar-chewing, grumbling, foul-mouthed, ink-stained, pot-bellied,?disheveled, cynical, snarling chief editor, Matt Louis. The feature will launch shortly, and will have an astonishing 8,000-word limit. The goal is to have the story be so compelling that readers will not look away regardless of increasing discomfort and?will be able, in the future, to cite reading it as the origin of their ongoing migraines and vision problems.

And, in case you think we've knuckled under completely to twenty-first century technology, all of the material posted on this site will be reviewed as it is published and the most exciting fiction and nonfiction will be collected in a regular print (and ebook) release that, just to throw everyone a curve-ball, we will entitle?Out of the Gutter.

That's it. Your official introduction to Out of the Gutter Online is complete. Stop dicking around on the Internet and get your best work to us as soon as possible.

Submissions will now be processed by our associates at Submittable.

Flash fiction goes here.

Short fiction goes here.

"The Big Story" guidelines will be posted soon.

If you would like to contribute a work of nonfiction, or have an idea for a regular feature, get in touch here.

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