PFR is now accepting submissions!!!!
We are looking for original, unpublished fiction. Yes, we are fully aware that no work of fiction is entirely original, nor has ever been, but we want originality anyway, so we strongly encourage you to come up with something new for once in your unremarkable life, even if it makes no logical sense. It has, however, to make some sense; we want a coherent story, after all. And nothing too weird, either; any work that doesn’t adhere to our guidelines will be promptly tossed in the dreaded “decline” pile, even if it’s the best piece we’ve received in years. We have quite the reputation to uphold, you see, and we’d rather not be known as “that one journal who published that one story about the human made of cat hair,” or whatever strange concept you have in mind. Also, your work must not contain any influences from your favorite authors, even though we’re probably quite fond of a few of them and have their work on our bookshelves at home. So go ahead, conjure up an idea that’s never been thought of before in literature’s 5,000-plus year history, preferably one that’s not too bizarre or off-putting. No pressure.
It should also be noted that we don’t want pieces that rely on genre, even if just a little. This means no horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and especially no horror-sci-fi-fantasy. There are plenty of journals out there that publish that crap, and we take great pride in not being one of them. We only publish literary fiction. You know, the type of fiction that people only pretend to enjoy to sound smarter than they actually are and/or get laid. We are aware that relying on genre helps make writing less daunting, especially for you younger writers out there. But we don’t want genre fiction. We want seven layers of metaphor that even the writer doesn’t understand, probably because they were running on less than two hours of sleep and five Bang energy drinks when they wrote it. We want big, eight syllable words, the kind that force us to pull up Google every other sentence. We want deep, philosophical themes that allude to obscure historical events that haven’t even gained their own Wikipedia page. We want literary fiction. But if you have a genre piece that you’re quite proud of, don’t send it to a magazine that publishes that genre; send it to us. We won’t read it, but we want you to send it to us anyway because we’re the best of the best, and besides, you should be honored to have your piece sitting at the bottom of PFRs reject pile.
We do not accept simultaneous submissions; you should submit your work to us and only us for reasons already specified. Furthermore, pieces that exceed our word limit, even if it’s by a couple words, even if said couple of words are the best goddamn combination of words we’ve ever read, will be shoved aside without so much as a glance at the title. We highly encourage emerging writers to submit to us, as we would love for us to be your first publication. However, we tend to publish writers who’ve been published in various journals and have at least three books to their name, as these writers are more experienced and therefore produce better work. Lastly, if you so choose to submit to us (which you should), we kindly ask that your submission follows Shunn formatting. And before you ask, no, we will not elaborate on what that is. Look it up yourself.
With that being said, we wish you the best of luck with your submission journey, and if, for whatever reason, we don’t accept your piece, don’t take it personally. It just means that your writing is dogshit.
Sincerely,
XXXXXX X. XXXXXXXXXXX
Managing Editor, Pretentious Fucks Review