That dreaded hiatus and submission status

Readers,

Apologies for the radio silence. The editors have been extremely busy dealing with real life priorities which cannot be put on the back-burner. 

We have closed submissions for now until we deal with the massive backlog. If you have sent us a story, thank you. Thank you for your fiction, but thank you also for your patience. We expect to get back to you before the end of the year - way past our usual response time. If you have any questions or would like to withdraw stories due to the waiting time - please don’t hesitate to do so via Submishmash.

With love and hellfire,

The editors

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A Rope Let Down From Heaven, by Kelcey Wells

“He’s a big old bottom once he gets to know you.” She punctuates her words by playfully nibbling at my earlobe.  A reassuring hand on my naked hip leads me back towards the bed.  There a muscular man, bare chest laced with swathes of black ink, sits with his back against the wall.  He is trying to hide his nerves behind a stern posture and broad shoulders.  “You just need to lead him into it a bit.”

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Submissions are now open!

Readers,

Fiction and poetry submissions are open once again. We’re using Submishmash, which means it’ll be a million times easier for us to keep track of submissions and do our job. This means that you will need to register a Submishmash account before you can send us a story. It’s free, and should take less than a minute. It’s a pretty small price to pay for a more efficient system which will allow the editors to (finally) be able to properly track all stories, request rewrites/edits if needed, and generally stay on top of things.

The old email address for submissions is gone. All stories sent at the email should have been dealt with. However, if you somehow fell through the cracks, toss a mail to axel.taiari@gmail.com and I’ll have a look.

Now go read the guidelines, and send us your best material.

http://rottenleaves.submishmash.com/submit

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Buried, by Richard Thomas

The lone Camaro squatted at the edge of the parking lot, a quiet hunger in the expanding night. The gleam of the full moon reflected off the midnight blue muscle car as the darkness enveloped the misty gravel that surrounded the wobbly shack. One piece of paper sat crumpled on the seat, with a name scrawled in lipstick violating the sheet. Some digits scribbled in haste.

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Beyond the Curtain Lies the Zoo of Wrong, by Graham Tugwell

By the hand he leads you, the grey-eyed man in the suit of grey, buttoned against the dry March cold.

Following the slanting shadows of dawn, down the crunch of curving path, around the dark-green bulk of fir, up seven steps, under a granite portico yawning, between tooth-etched pillars and through the liver-red door.

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Don’t Stop to Smell the Roses, by Doc O’Donnell

Every damn Friday evening for the last year this kid’s come past and every damn time he’s helped himself to one of my wife’s roses. He sees me sitting under the dim veranda light and still plucks one away. The first few times, I told Mavis, God bless her soul, so one night she had the hose out and waited for him to get up to the garden bed. As soon as his hand touched the stem she turned the hose on him, full-blast. We laughed for a good couple of weeks over it.

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