length restrictions
-My current plan is to include seven (7) poems — each from a different author — and three (3) short stories — same deal. Therefore, so I don’t lose my tucchus on self-publishing this thing, I will insist your short stories be hard-capped at 2,000 words. When it comes to poems, in theory there are no length restrictions, but use your head. I don’t want to be giving a single poem more than two pages of space.
how to submit
-The fun part! Email your document to crunchionaugustreview@gmail.com. No specific format needed in the subject line, but an all-caps SUBMISSION and your full name would be appreciated.
Poets: 2-4 of your jauntiest efforts. If formatting is important, I’m cool with PDFs. Will reckon with that stuff once we get to laying this mf out like a high school yearbook.
Prosists: 1-2 of your liveliest exertions. Each must be under 2,000 words. And no, it does not matter if they both add up to 2,000 words. I will only be printing one.
-Do not bother with a cover letter or a personal bio. I’m interested in your work. Plus, I know firsthand how exhausting it is to continually pour out personal information to journals. If your piece is chosen, I will get back to you and solicit all those juicy details we need for your bottom-of-the-page byline. The one thing you can include if you’re so inclined are links to your socials as I will toss anyone a follow who does me the favor of submitting.
-I also don’t care about font, margins, page numbers, or the fractured family life of your word processor. I can handle whatever. As long as your writing is in a document that I can open, we’re good to go.
visual art and other categories
-Unfortunately, I don’t know a single everloving thing about contemporary art so I will not be able to accurately judge the quality of your work nor am I likely to have the color printing capabilities necessary to display it in all its glory. I am also not big on nonfiction of any sort. The one exception I can MAYBE see myself making is if you submit a lights-out review for a really cool album, but it would have to be apocalyptically good for me to put in this issue.
Turnaround Time and feedback
-As of press time, I have zero clue how many submissions I will receive. For issue one, I can promise two things. 1) You will hear back from me within a month. 2) Everyone who submits will receive fairly detailed feedback on their work. There’s something that’s such a unique bummer about getting your stuff rejected and not having any clue as to why. It may not be a line-by-line breakdown of your plot arc, but you will get something substantial from me regardless of your selection status.
submission fees
-Hah, were you worried there for a second? You rube! No, of course there is no reading fee for this joint. However, I know I’m going to take a bath on the publication and shipping, so if you feel inclined to help staunch the bleeding, I set up a Ko-fi page for such a purpose. Any donation is appreciated. It will not increase your chances of acceptance, though. You have no idea the kinds of expensive tastes you’d have to fund if you really wanted to sway me.
Deadline
-Again, this depends a lot on how many people take a run at this thing. For now, the tentative timeline is to close submissions on June 15 and have the magazine out a month later. If this whole endeavor is way more time-consuming than my hubris has led me to believe or I am Noah building the ark against a flood of pieces, I’ll adjust accordingly.
All the other lit journal stuff i don’t really understand
-No previously published work, because nobody else takes that. Simultaneous are totally fine, just let me know if you have to take a piece out of consideration, I don’t need to get sued by the god damn Cincinnati Review or something over a Pushcart nomination. Upon publishing all rights revert to you I think? Help me get this off the ground and then we’ll talk.