SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

SUBMISSIONS are closed for Issue #9 until further notice.  Thank you!

Stories – The Black Boot is an open minded publication.  We love storytelling.  We do happen to believe, though, that the medium of the website lends itself best to short pieces.  How short?  1000 words.  But we are not tightassed sticklers.  This is a guideline, a suggestion.  The process is unavoidably and extremely subjective.  Humor is good.  Smug and glib are not.  Experiments in language, as well as straight-ahead, earnest narratives, are welcome.  The deciding factor is and always will be the strength of the voice.

Please email your fiction submissions to blackbootstories@mail.com

Poetry – The Black Boot’s bent is for poetry exploring one or more areas within the following territory (but is always open to elements that are convincing and enticing outside of this terrain): personal, satirical, ironic, absurd, quixotic, dryly humorous with perhaps an emphasis on the darker tones (dark humor, tragicomedy), intense or its opposite, deep yet accessible, something between sense and non-sense (but not strong on either side), insightful, repetitions with imperfection, fresh/unexpected use of language, and with a sense of rhythm/meter and rhyme that is elastic yet cleverly identifiable. Please send at least 3 poems and put them ALL in the same document.  Thank you!

Please email your poetry submissions to blackbootpoetry@mail.com

Photographs and Art – Always welcome!  Comics and graphic fiction also welcome.

Please email your art submissions and general queries to blackboot@mail.com

Nuts and Bolts – Nothing published before, anywhere, anyhow—please.  Word attachments are best.  We like to hear a bit about you, either in a formal cover letter approach or an informal and engaging introduction.  Listing previous publications is unnecessary; but, we admit, sometimes we are impressed, in awe even, when we verify that you’ve done what you say you’ve done.

Writers, sincerely, thank you for the interest in The Black Boot.  The world would be an insufferably dismal place without you.