Hey everyone,

Following the success of our Halloween themed mini-issue, we're hoping you guys can find inspiration in an even more terrifying theme: love. We're planning a Valentine's Day mini-issue in February, so, if you're interested, please send us your best story about young love, old love, lost-and-found love, worn love, new love, crazy love. This is a good opporunity to try and write a happy story. It's really hard! (Sad stories OK.)

And now, the normal submission guidelines.

We are trying to keep the submission process as simple for you guys as we can. The first thing to do is to check out the lovely comic Katie made, and also read one of our issues – that will give you an idea of the sort of stories we’re looking for. Basically, we want exuberant, engaging prose fiction. Not too long: 5,000 words-ish sounds like a good maximum. We do not publish poetry. Your story can take place in the past or in the future, or on Tuesday. It can have sea monsters, black holes, pistol duels, or not. Use your imagination. We appreciate humor, but don’t demand it. We love beautiful prose. We hate the second person (but that doesn’t stop us from publishing it). Your story should definitely have strong characters who make decisions and have interesting internal lives. It should be deeply felt. That is, your story should not merely relate fascinating events in a beautiful way, but it should seek to explore the significance of those events. Make it meaningful! Keep in mind that your readers are only a CTRL+T (or applething+T) away from the rest of the internet, and give us a story that will make them forget that.

If you think you have a story we’ll love, attach it in .doc or .rtf (not .docx, please) form to an email and send it to earhustlermag at gmail.com. If you don’t include a bio or anything we’ll ask you for one if we decide to publish your story. Include a cover letter if you like. Tell us a little about yourself. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Multiple submissions are probably OK, but try not to go overboard. Please don’t submit anything that’s been published elsewhere.

There’s a chance that we will give constructive criticism of your submission. If the thought of receiving such feedback from us is unbearable, please don’t submit.

If we decide to publish your story all we want is first electronic rights and permission to keep your story on the site as long as we want. Once the issue goes up, all other rights revert to the author. If your story gets published in an anthology or collection someday, we’d appreciate a shout-out. We can’t pay you anything.

We look forward to reading your work!