Fugue is published biannually. Payment is upon publication: prose pays up to $50 as funds allow and poetry pays up to $25 as funds allow. We will consider simultaneous submissions (submissions that have been sent concurrently to another journal) with the explicit provision that the writer inform us immediately if the work is accepted for publication elsewhere. Once you have submitted a piece to us, wait for a response on this piece before submitting again. Please include a cover letter with your name, address, email, phone, and list the work(s) included, as well as a brief bio citing any awards/publications.
Guidelines
Fiction - Not more than 6,000 words, double- spaced, pages numbered, contact information with a short bio in the cover letter. We are looking for cutting edge fiction with a strong narrative sense and indelible characters.
Poetry - Three to five poems, or 10 pages. Include contact information and a short bio in the cover letter. We ask that you submit no more than six poems at a time, and only twice per year. Avoid, if possible, large manila envelopes. Please submit poetry that will reveal a world heretofore unknown to our readers.
Non-fiction - 6,000 word limit, double-spaced, pages numbered, contact information along with a short bio in the cover letter. We are looking for exquisite, idiosyncratic reflection on compelling subjects.
Creative literary criticism - 6,000 word limit, double-spaced, pages numbered, contact information and a short bio in the cover letter. We are seeking insightful, but not overly academic, criticism illuminated by personal experience.
The Experiment - Any length. Any subject. Almost anything goes.
The Context: Biologist and early social theorist, Herbert Spencer, argues that the social organism exists in a state of constant differentiation, a progressive and continual evolution, a perpetual realm of permutation. In this way, literature, as a social phenomenon, must also differentiate, evolve, and permutate. Literature can not live in a bubble, stasis is not good, and conventions are only conventions because we indoctrinate them as such. For these reasons, and many more, Fugue believes in the absolute necessity of experimental thinking. In fact, we are so enamored of those risky scribes who take the experimental sensibility as their literary charge, that we would like to dedicate our own newest experiment to you, the literary experimenters, alchemists, and mad-hatters alike, by calling for submissions of experimental literature, which will be given, if accepted, a room of their own. However, as this room will be smaller than most, for each reading period we will choose, only, a single manuscript of sublime merit. This manuscript will be a risky, edgy, sexy, funny, and demonic literary experiment too fresh to find refuge or respite with other literary journals. We will consider any cross-section of aesthetics, genre, category, period, school, or convention. We will privilege what has not been seen or read before. Surprise or slay us with your genius and your vision. Make us re-vision everything we have previously valued about the reading and writing of literature.
The Catch: It seems to us, at Fugue, that there is far too much about “experimental” literature that is gratuitous and self-indulgent. Experimental does not mean writing devoid of editing, nor does it mean writing that endeavors to create an impervious artifice or impregnable narrative. Instead, as we see it, experimental literature is the product of necessity – a last ditch effort to tell a story that can't be told in any other way. Really, for us, the literary experiment is an act of desperation, not subterfuge. There are stories that can not be told because the conventions are not adequate for telling them. In this case, which marks a rare and special set of circumstances, the literary experiment arises and presents itself as a thing of worth, a thing of beauty, and a thing in need of housing. On our end, the best we can do is offer a room or two in our humble little abode and a few dollars with which to feed the "experiment." So, before purchasing your manila envelopes, filling out your SASEs, and mailing off your submission, make sure your literary experiment is more than just smoke and mirrors. We are not circus people, and, byway of our general likes and dislikes, carnivals are creepy.
Address all "Experiment" submissions to either (Kendall Sand, Co-editor) or Michael Lewis (Co-editor) and label them, appropriately, “The Experiment.”
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