We are curly haired swamp creatures howling into the moonlight, doggy paddling and barking at toads and flies. We want your weird, muddy, and messy - the turtles without shells, boiled frogs, & mushroom-capped fairies.

Our goal as a literary magazine is to feature and share literature that defies norms, challenges conventions, and embraces the unsettlingly beautiful and oddly innovative. We are a platform for emerging writers and artists to share their unique perspectives and voices, with a commitment to embracing and supporting diverse voices. Our core values guide everything we do, shaping our vision and ensuring that we provide a literary haven that nurtures creativity, fosters community, and amplifies marginalized voices.

Melissa Martini

Moss Puppy Magazine

Make you feel at home: cozy, meme-friendly, a sense of community, all that stuff

Active on social media

Available in print

Helpful: reposting other opportunities on their Twitter:)

Amberfields

Emily Benson lives in Western New York with her husband and two sons. Her work has been featured in The CryptoNaturalist podcast, Deep Wild Journal, Gastropoda, Literary Mama, Moist Poetry Journal, Paddler Press, and others. Read more at www.emilybensonpoet.com.

Auzin is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. With over two dozen publications in print and online, she has also published two chapbooks, and was nominated for a Pushcart Best of the Net Prize in 2022. She worked previously as an editor at Hecate Magazine, Wrong Publishing, the Jupiter Review, and Longleaf Review. Auzin was awarded an Outpost Foundation residency in 2023. More of her work can be found at byauzin.com.

general bio

Auzin is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. With over two dozen publications, she has also published two chapbooks, and was nominated for a Pushcart Best of the Net Prize in 2022. Auzin was awarded an Outpost Foundation residency in 2023. More of her work can be found at byauzin.com.

50-word bio

Dear editors,

Thank you for considering this piece for publication at Five on the Fifth. This is a simultaneous submission and if accepted, I publish work under my first name only. The word count of this piece is 860.

Bio: Auzin is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. With over two dozen publications, she has also published two chapbooks, and was nominated for a Pushcart Best of the Net Prize in 2022. Auzin was awarded an Outpost Foundation residency in 2023. More of her work can be found at byauzin.com.

Warm regards,
Auzin Ahmadi (she/her)

cover letter

NSFW cover letter

Brooksie C. Fontaine is a coffee addict who got into college at fifteen and annoyed everyone there. She is a teaching assistant, illustrator, and MFA recipient. Her work has appeared in over thirty literary journals and anthologies, including trampset, Bending Genres, Literally Stories, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fahmidan Journal, and Ghost Parachute.



50-Word Bio

Brooksie C. Fontaine is an obnoxious coffee addict who got into college at fifteen and annoyed everyone there. She is a teaching assistant, illustrator, and recipient of MFA degrees in English and Illustration. Her work has appeared in over thirty literary journals and anthologies, including trampset, Bending Genres, Defenestration Magazine, Eunoia Review, Aureation, Report From Newport, Boston Accent Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, and more. Her Twitter is BrooksiesBooks, where she posts daily microfiction.


Longer Bio

Kristin Gustafson is a poet, editor, and sentient ball of anxiety from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Her poems have been published in Troublemaker Firestarter, Anti-Heroin Chic, Moss Puppy Mag, Coffee People Zine, Contemporary Verse 2, and various other magazines. You can find her on Twitter @kristinthered and on Instagram @kristingustafsone

Kinda Funny Poetry Bio

Kristin Gustafson is a poet and editor from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Her work has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Contemporary Verse 2, Troublemaker Firestarter, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @kristinthered and on Instagram @kristingustafsone

Traditional/Stuffy Poetry Bio

Sadee Bee (They/Them) is a queer artist and writer inspired by magic, strange dreams, and creepy vibes. Sadee is the Visual Arts Editor for Sage Cigarettes Magazine. Bee can be found on Twitter @SadeeBee, on Instagram @sadee__bee, and on the web at www.sadeebee.com  

Main Simple Bio  

Reva writes about the body and relationships as a poet, a bioengineer, and a mother. She lives outside of Chicago; her favorite running trails go through the Indiana Dunes. She has two sons and recently, accidentally, became a cat lady. Reva is the Special Issues Editor of the Assistive Technology Journal, and she has published in outlets ranging from Frontiers in Neuroscience to the Handbook of Biomechatronics to Moss Puppy Magazine. 

Reva Elise Johnson

I'm writing from outside Chicago near the Indiana Dunes. I look across Lake Michigan and see your city skyline; I look to the left and see the sand dunes; I look to the right and see the steel mills. It's here that 'Galvanized Steel' was written.

I can't decide if the dunes and the steel mills together form a contradiction, or a striking similarity. I feel the same about my work and life: I'm a mechanical engineer and a poet. I'm a cat lady and I'm raising two sons. I've published in Frontiers of Neuroscience and in Moss Puppy Magazine. 

---
500 characters:
I'm writing from outside Chicago, near the Indiana Dunes. I look across Lake Michigan and see the city skyline; I look left and see the sand dunes; I look right and see the steel mills. It's here that I wrote 'Galvanized Steel.'

I can't decide if the dunes and steel mills together form a contradiction or a strange similarity. I feel the same about myself: I'm an engineer & a poet. I'm a cat lady & I'm raising two sons. I've published in Frontiers of Neuroscience & Moss Puppy Magazine. Here we go. 

Contradictions, perhaps

Moss Puppy, of course, lives in a swamp, and I thought it only fitting for our first issue's theme to be dedicated to just that: SWAMPLAND.

View

Poems are part of CANON FAMILIARIS, which will be published by Really Serious Literature in 2023. 

To Pet Her is to Cast a Net, 13 Ways of Looking at Ulrique Margarete

page 75; cw: alcohol

(...)

I wonder if she ever noticed,
as her fingers threaded softly through my hair, 
how I stole glances at her in the mirror, 
hoping to see anything in there –
a glimpse of yearning, a spark, any kind of sign

fever daydreams

"Hot Chocolate" showcases intimacy in the form of brief snapshots of life that are magnified to reveal the tenderness and love that exist in everyday moments.

Hot Chocolate

"Howl for me beneath your indigo moon, Boy-Wolf,
Sing the song of your people, of the ravished land,
Of the nations that have risen and fallen."

Published in Moss Puppy Magazine Issue 2: Puppy Love [May 2022]

Boy-Wolf

"Waiting for Arthur in Funtown Splashtown USA"

In the city, I search for myself and cannot find her –

shoes tapping against cobblestone pavements and beads of
sweat like a crown atop my forehead, I forage street after
street, a cartographer with two handfuls of faulty maps.

(...)

false histories

Stranger in the Kitchen

iii. The first time I tried to impale the sky, I made the moon bleed.

(...)

moonpiercer

Hedgehog

Things I Keep In My Mouth 

"The chained tree was murdered. I came home from 7th grade one day and it was gone—not even a stump remained, only churned topsoil."

The Chained Tree

Home Again

The Enchanted Sword

Not everything you touch turns to gold. Moss Puppy Magazine Issue 3 - Blades! | Autumn 2022

The Boy With Golden Hair

Mychorrhiza

This vacuous space is what keeps me up at night. 
It swells with an eerie longing, 


Caged Sheep, No Sleep

like shirasu

Of Guinea Pigs and Men

Eight of Swords as Eight of Words

Betrothed 


She fell for him through soft mossed earth and chipboard shards. It was the unexpected fall of a long dead angel as their bones collided and settled between each other’s nesting forms. It was a tenancy of grave collapse...

Caged

The Loss of Spring

i spy through the kaleidoscope

and yearn through jupiter, thirty-six moons, every black 
hole just to find the parallel universe on earth. i never 
had imaginary friends as a kid, but i swore there was
someone on earth who remembered us.

on saturn, we watched earth revive herself

I bowed, bah-ed, been the perfect black sheep
to the perfect midwestern farmers, and still,

I’m milliliters from death on their barn floor.

In My Dreams, My Family Tries to Euthanize Me

A creative non-ficition piece in Issue 4 of Moss Puppy Magazine, "Caged," which details events that took place during my time working in a grocery store. Specifically, register and the customer service desk.

Stories From a Common Customer Service Worker

In the Stillness That Comes After

In Issue 6:
"Struggling so hard against being 
saved, some people will drown you too..."

Sea Rescue, a triolet

The Find

A woman ponders her dysfunctional relationship at a wedding venue where carnivorous but beautiful mermaids are the selling point.

Sea Foam

She was beautiful. Of course she was. Blurring the rest of the world seemed a worthy sacrifice just to be able to count the freckles on her cheeks. 


Moss Puppy Magazine

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