We publish bold, boundary-blurring fiction, poetry, and art—beautifully strange, darkly funny, or achingly human. Genre with a literary edge: speculative, horror, suspense, surreal, or hybrids welcome. $20 payment for fiction. Sim subs okay.

For writers who’ve struggled to find an outlet in the rigidity of literary expectations—yeah, we see you. This space is for all, but our passion is for the underrepresented voice: the one screaming to be heard but somehow always silenced.

We want fiction, poetry, and digital art that doesn’t just knock politely—it kicks the door open. Work that lingers because it’s bold, strange, sharp, or achingly human. Genre with a literary edge? Absolutely. Think speculative, horror, suspense, surreal, dark comedy, or hybrids we can’t quite name.

If it’s beautifully odd, quietly unsettling, sharply funny, or just so good it makes us stop mid-sentence, send it. We welcome simultaneous submissions. We pay $20 USD for accepted fiction. Occasionally themed, never a gimmick—just the voices that need to be heard.

Online publications putting forward exceptional short stories for Best of the Net.

Fiction Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Digital publications advancing very short fiction for Best of the Net consideration.

Flash Fiction Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Identifies publications that put forward outstanding online work for this respected digital anthology established in 2006.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Essential publications that nominate short fiction for the O'Henry Prize anthology, one of America's most venerable literary awards. Established in 1919.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for the O'Henry Prize

These magazines have the fastest response times, so you won't be left hanging for months. No more endless waiting. Just, you know, regular waiting.

Literary Magazines with the Fastest Response Times

Explore the all-time most competitive speculative fiction literary magazines. These magazines are revered in the fiction world for their editorial rigor.

Most Competitive Speculative Fiction Magazines of All Time

Explore the most popular literary magazines of all time. These long-established publications are a staple in the literary world for writers of all genres.

Most Popular Literary Magazines of All Time

Check out the all-time most popular speculative fiction literary magazines. These publications have a long-standing reputation for quality speculative fiction.

Most Popular Speculative Fiction Magazines of All Time

Online journals that specifically champion poetry for Best of the Net consideration.

Poetry Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Neon and Smoke

We know feedback can be a mixed bag. As writers ourselves, we’ve had our share of “feedback” that felt more like a brush-off than a real response. That’s not what we’re offering here.
If you choose the feedback option, we’ll send you our honest commentary on how your piece landed with us at Neon and Smoke. What pulled us in, where we stumbled, and where we think the work could stretch further. We’ll also include a couple of actionable suggestions—concrete ideas you can take back to the page if you decide to revise.
When submitting for feedback, let us know in your cover letter if you’d like your piece considered for publication as well, or if you’re only seeking editorial notes.
This isn’t about guaranteeing publication (it doesn’t). It’s about sharing a reader’s perspective from the editorial side, with respect for the voice you’ve already built.
Our goal is simple: to give you the kind of feedback we’d actually want to receive.

Category: Fiction
File types: .doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf
Number of Pieces: 1 piece
Anonymous submissions are not required.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed.
Reprints are not allowed.
Multiple entries are allowed.

 Return to overview

Feedback: Fiction

Soulful Things are the things we remember. 

They touch us, carry us, and stir us. We feel them deeply, in faces, in eyes, in the way music curls around us.<div>Show us where the soul lives and breathes. Show us the intimacy of life. The people, the music, object, and moments that give us life. The things that linger long after the moment has passed.</div><div><br></div><div>Don't make us figure it out. Make us feel it.<br><div><br></div><div>We love diversity. Different people. Different pictures.</div><div><br></div><div>Surprise us.</div></div>

Soulful Things

2nd Annual Love Issue<div><br></div><div>Submissions open October 1–30</div><div>Publication: February 2027</div><div><br></div><div>This call is for all our hopeless romantics. The ones who believe love can arrive in a moment—and, quite frankly, those who say fuck love.</div><div><br></div><div>We call those folks hopelessly unromantic.</div><div><br></div><div>You're invited too.</div><div><br></div><div>We want the bliss and the heartache.</div><div>We want the erotic and the intellectual.</div><div>We want the love that saves us and the love we probably should have left alone.</div><div><br></div><div>Tell us about when the gay became straight and the straight became gay. Tell us about the ten men who boarded a rocket ship only to discover there are no women on Venus.</div><div><br></div><div>Give us strange love.</div><div>Give us bad luck.</div><div>Give us love that makes us cry.</div><div><br></div><div>Just give us love—however you understand it.</div><div><br></div><div>PS. We interpret love broadly. Romantic, platonic, familial, sexual, obsessive, lost, found, regretted, imagined... we could go on.</div>

Annual Love Issue

Annual Love Issue Poetry

2nd Annual Love Issue<div><br></div><div>Submissions open October 1–30</div><div>Publication: February 2027</div><div><br></div><div>This call is for all our hopeless romantics. The ones who believe love can arrive in a moment—and, quite frankly, those who say fuck love.</div><div><br></div><div>We call those folks hopelessly unromantic.</div><div><br></div><div>You're invited too.

</div><div>Show us what love looks like. Love in motion. Broken love. Forgotten Love. Steamy Love.</div><div><br></div><div>Give us strange love.</div><div>Give us bad luck.</div><div>Give us love that makes us cry.</div><div><br></div><div>Just give us love—however you understand it.</div><div><br></div><div>PS. We interpret love broadly. Romantic, platonic, familial, sexual, obsessive, lost, found, regretted, imagined... we could go on.</div>

Annual Love Issue Visual Art

<div><br></div><div>The women on these pages exist across time, race, and social class. They have been suppressed, they have been loved, and they have been wronged. What they won’t do is surrender.</div><div><br></div><div>Women Who Burn is a collection of women at the edge of desire, of grief, of control, of themselves.</div><div><br></div><div>We want women who are messy, complicated, funny, furious, tender, selfish, sensual, reckless, calculating, joyful, grieving, hungry, even strange. Women making terrible decisions for perfectly understandable reasons. Women making the right decisions far too late. Women who leave. Women who stay. Women who want too much, feel too deeply, laugh too hard, or say the thing they were never supposed to say.</div><div><br></div><div>And yes, men can absolutely be in their lives. (Unless they wish it otherwise.)</div><div><br></div><div>Let them complicate things deliciously. Let them love these women well. Let them misunderstand them completely. Let them help. Let them hinder. Let them bumble through. </div><div><br></div><div>But by burning we don't mean rage alone.</div><div><br></div><div>Burning is that heat smoldering beneath the surface. It makes these women laugh. It makes them ache. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them want.</div><div><br></div><div>Give us desire, absurdity, obsession, reinvention, revenge, intimacy, liberation, contradiction.</div><div><br></div><div>Give us women who don’t realize that they are the fire until it’s mostly too late.</div><div><br></div><div>Above all, give us women who feel alive. </div><div><br></div><div>This is Neon &amp; Smoke. By this time you know, we like to keep things smoky. (Someone once said, unruly.) </div><div><br></div><div>Women Who Burn is the second annual print anthology from Neon &amp; Smoke, tentatively scheduled for publication May/June 2027 and online publication in April 2027.</div>

Neon and Smoke

Highlights

About

Featured Call

Annual Love Issue

Appears in collections