MARCH 2026: ROGUE OPERATORS

Fiction Guidelines

Theme Overview

Lone wolves. Fixers. Professionals who operate by their own code when institutions fail or betray. This issue celebrates characters with lethal competence and personal ethics that supersede the rules—people who get things done precisely because they answer to no one.

What We're Looking For

  • Protagonists with specialized skills operating outside official channels
  • Personal codes of honor that conflict with institutional expectations
  • High-stakes scenarios requiring competence under pressure
  • Moral complexity—these aren't simple heroes, but they're not villains either
  • Action with consequences, not just choreography

Character Archetypes That Fit

  • The fixer who cleans up problems others won't touch
  • The specialist pulled back in for one last job
  • The operator who went independent after the system betrayed them
  • The contractor whose personal ethics clash with the client's orders
  • The professional who discovers the mission isn't what it seemed

We're Not Looking For

  • Invincible protagonists with no real obstacles
  • Violence as spectacle without narrative weight
  • Generic military/spy thrillers with interchangeable heroes
  • Protagonists who are "rogue" in name only but actually serve institutional interests
  • Torture porn or cruelty framed as toughness

Specs

  • 2500-5000 words total, structured in 3-4 episodes
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FICTION SUBMISSION – MARCH – [Your Title]

APRIL 2026: SATIRE AS WEAPON

Fiction Guidelines

Theme Overview

Dark comedy. Social absurdism. Stories that attack through wit what they can't destroy by force. This issue features fiction that uses humor as a scalpel—cutting into systems, institutions, and sacred cows that deserve the blade.

What We're Looking For

  • Protagonists who see the absurdity others miss—and refuse to play along
  • Satire with teeth: stories that punch at power, not down at the powerless
  • Dark comedy that earns its darkness through insight, not just shock
  • Worlds where the rules are ridiculous and only the protagonist notices
  • Humor that illuminates rather than deflects from real stakes

Tonal Range We'll Consider

  • Bitter workplace satire (the system is broken and everyone pretends otherwise)
  • Absurdist dystopia (bureaucratic nightmares, kafkaesque scenarios)
  • Social comedy with a blade (manners and customs revealed as hollow)
  • Gallows humor (finding the joke at the edge of catastrophe)
  • Satirical noir (cynicism as survival mechanism)

We're Not Looking For

  • Comedy without edge—if nothing's being criticized, it's not satire
  • Parody that merely references without commentary
  • Humor that relies on punching down or lazy stereotypes
  • "Wacky" premises that substitute randomness for insight
  • Satire so broad it says nothing specific

Specs

  • 2500-5000 words total, structured in 3-4 episodes
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FICTION SUBMISSION – APRIL – [Your Title]

MAY 2026: SURVIVING THE APOCALYPSE

Fiction Guidelines

Theme Overview

The world ends—or nearly does—and your characters have to survive what comes after. This issue explores what people become when systems collapse and survival depends on choices no one should have to make.

What We're Looking For

  • Protagonists forced to rebuild, adapt, or simply endure
  • Moral dilemmas with no clean answers (who do you save? what do you sacrifice?)
  • The psychology of survival—how catastrophe changes people
  • Small-scale human drama against large-scale collapse
  • Communities forming, fracturing, or turning on each other
  • Hope that's earned, not assumed

Apocalypse Types We'll Consider

  • Environmental collapse, plague, nuclear aftermath
  • Societal breakdown (economic, political, infrastructural)
  • Slow apocalypse (the world ending gradually, not all at once)
  • Regional catastrophe (not global, but world-ending for those inside it)
  • Technological collapse or dependence gone wrong

We're Not Looking For

  • Survivalist fantasies where the protagonist thrives because they were "prepared"
  • Zombies (unless you're doing something genuinely new with them)
  • Apocalypse as backdrop for standard action plots
  • Nihilism without purpose—bleakness for its own sake
  • Protagonists who are conveniently skilled at everything survival requires

Specs

  • 2500-5000 words total, structured in 3-4 episodes
  • See main Submission Guidelines for formatting and process
  • Subject line: FICTION SUBMISSION – MAY – [Your Title]