Eyeshot has
been internationally accessible since 1999. Fiction,
photographs, rants, reviews, links, essays, and other
unclassifiables are accepted and declined. We pay in
dissemination and validation, however meager.
Review of stories received from random people via
e-mail is our volunteer work. It's how we try to make
the world a better place. Or if not "better" than at
least a little less shitty thanks to free
international dispersal of odd and hopefully
semi-humorous or at least unexpectedly sidewinding
displays of language. As such, Eyeshot no longer
receives and reviews electronic (ie, e-mailed)
submissions sent to submit at eyeshot.net.
If you'd like to send long breathless love letters;
antique postcards; old mixed tapes discovered in a box
in your parents' basement you made when a
post-adolescent depressive; ironic garments for a 6–12
month-old baby, particularly black sleeveless/legless
onesies), the old-fashioned mailing address is BOX
18009 Phila PA 19147.
Some further ideas for those enticed to submit:
Please include boatloads of biographical information
and links to every possible previous publication and
the name of every professor you ever heard speak or
slept with at your prestigious NYC MFA program you'll
soon graduate from +$80K in debt, and -- very
important! -- make sure to mention how many times
you've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. We would
also like to see links to most if not all of your
social media accounts, esp. Goodreads, Twitter,
Uganda, Tumblr, Whatnot, and Facebook. If you would
like to start a fundraiser thing to raise money for a
bribe to grease our editorial palms, please make sure
to do that well in advance of your submission.
Specific Recommendations & Restrictions
Once there was a time when asked about submission
guidelines we consulted the many sages and they all
replied, "Cows never roam from pastures with no
fences." We can't deny the wisdom of the sages. And
so, there shan't be submission guidelines. EXCEPT, to
recognize that some people might want to know what we
tend to post without bothering to browse the archive,
we are now happy to offer somewhat explicit
recommendations:
DO NOT SEND POETRY unless (1) it's disguised as
prose, (2) it's totally nasty & perverted, or (3)
you're an
Egyptian.
DO NOT SEND ANYTHING if your e-mail address includes
the words writer, write, poet,
or anything similar. If you are under 17 years of age,
it's OK. But otherwise, please do not submit.
PLEASE TRY NOT TO SEND whimsical pieces that are
loaded with dialogue and lots of lame pop-cultural
references (we prefer mythological, literary,
art-historical, and/or misanthropomorphophagical
allusions).
PLEASE TRY NOT TO SEND something about an emotionally
cathartic moment from your childhood (unless it
involves dead clowns).
PLEASE TRY NOT TO SEND some small, relatively
unimaginative, essayistic piece about deli meats or
chapstick or dentists.
PLEASE TRY NOT TO SEND anything that anyone would
ever describe as "punk rock."
PLEASE TRY NOT TO SEND anything if your favorite
author is Bukowski. Nothing against the man, but if
he's your favorite author, please send your
submission elsewhere. Again, we have no real problem
with Bukowski's writing whatsoever, but if you're all
about him, that is, if you write like him way more
than you write like yourself, please realize you're
invited to do two things: (1) pray for a big ol'
rainstorm of sweet, sweet whisky, and (2) insert and
piston your skinny ashen thingy (assuming you're a
boy) into and out of the hole in the center of your
collector's edition DVD of Barfly.
PLEASE TRY NOT TO SEND anything that you would call
"flash fiction." Short pieces are fine to send, but
not if you refer to them as "flash fiction." We seem
to have an unspecifiable problem with the term.
PLEASE REALIZE you can send any of the above but we
won't accept them unless they're really funny
and/or wonderful. We tend to like things that are
denser (not so quick to include space breaks between
sentences), that are somewhat elusive and inventive
and overblown languagewise and not-so-sane
aesthetically. OK? That's a hint intended to save us
all time. But then again, we are always open to
reading anything you want to send. It may seem like
there are now some fences, but they're imaginary -- if
you don't want them to be there, that's fine - think
of them as suggested fences.
PLEASE REALIZE that Thanks
and
Sorry and Good Luck: Rejection Letters from the
Eyeshot Outbox may prove an invaluable
resource for prospective submitters interested in
discerning our editorial tendencies and taste.
PLEASE REALIZE we are no longer encouraging visitors
to send stuff that's plagiarized or transcripts of
instant messages, although we did in the
past (before folks started using gchats in
fiction, FYI).
Again, if you would like to send physical objects
($$$ or gifts or small cat toys or ironic T-shirts for
toddlers (size 5T) or books/music to potentially
review), our mailing address is:
Eyeshot, PO Box 18009, Phila, PA 19147
To learn more about this site, we offer you this link
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