Guess Who’s Back, B – Words?! (I’m trying not to offend anyone by my use of colorful language.) I’m back. But in a Whole New Way… – Kelly Fitzharris Faulk, Editor-in-Chief

I’m back.

In a brand new way.

I’m changing these loose, broad themes to a very specific writing prompt that I want to be tailored to this publication, this web site, and something that wants a home right here.

13 Approachable Literary Journals – Courtesy of Authors Publish : If you’d like, check out this wildly WRONG account of what this web site thinks we do, thinks we are, and thinks we’re about. They obviously have not combed through all of my editorials like my dedicated, longtime SLMers have and continue to do as they see my life unfold and change, like a piece of pottery that’s in the process of being sculpted.

I don’t mind being listed on other web sites. It’s always interesting to see and read someone else’s interpretation of what I’m trying to do here at SLM and what I strive to do in the literary world at large.

Amanda McLeod, a longtime contributor and brilliant fiction writer of SLM’s, responded that she was sad to hear that she was the SINGLE contributor to my new writing prompt that I’m running until the end of the calendar year. You may read about it here: SUBMISSIONS & SUBMISSIONS FAQ

Or here: Okay, Let’s Try a Reboot, So to Speak – Editor’s Letter, Kelly Fitzharris Faulk

I told her that I was the opposite of sad, because I’d just finished reading her story. She’d taken the time to look over the new writing prompt and pour out a completely original, mind-blowing story that seamlessly blended the theme in it without being overt or blatant. I was actually extremely happy about all of this. Earlier today, Duotrope took my magazine off of their database because they had a disagreement with me. How ridiculous is that? There have been a WHOLE lot of changes, but I’ve also seen a whole lot of truth about who people really are and what they’re really here for.

Amanda is here for SLM. She is not seeking a few minutes of some glorified rush. She believes in my mission to ultimately revive and restore modern literature by breaking down arbitrary limitations and stale, indelibly rigid standards and margin specifications that we, creatives, we writers, are supposed to mindlessly adhere to as though we’ve somehow become accountants.

We writers are much like abstract painters.

We don’t write within the lines.

We don’t like “one inch margin” rules. It makes us cringe with a fear that writing has now been dumbed down to some sort of menial office-like task.

Here, at SLM, it has not. I’m changing how I run things, yes. But I have not forgotten why I began this publication and I am not finished sticking it to the man just yet.

Although ‘Authors Publish’ said that there was little writers would gain from being published by a fledgling, neophyte lit mag like myself, I beg to DIFFER. I nominate for the Pushcart Prize yearly. I have seen MANY, MANY, too many to name and to count, of my writers and contributors go on to publish their books, get featured and published in print anthologies, and blow everyone away.

My own book was published by a small, independent publishing company up in Delaware about a year ago (Snow Leopard Publishing, LLC) – and I was featured in a poetry anthology called Dandelions in a Vase of Roses that was released around the same time as my book.

I am a writer.

I am your advocate.

The modern literary world is filled with either staunch, rigid detail-obsessive freaks who have no clue what it is to write and to be rejected over and over again. On the other hand, it’s also running rampant with random “hipster-esque” publications that are trying way too hard to be someone who has five facial piercings and wears elbow patches on all of their suit jackets (I know hipsters. I lived in Austin, Texas, for over six years). You don’t need an edgy, blue-black hairstyle that’s cut diagonally to be published here. You don’t need an armful of tattoos. You don’t need an arsenal of posers.

You only need to be you.

Signing off,

Over and out,

Your Favorite Editor-in-Chief,

Kelly Fitzharris Faulk