about us

We want to read writing that takes big swings. We are prose focused, but we want a good story. Give us a slice of the sublimely strange. We want the eerie and the beautiful. We're interested in the body and its grotesqueries, the brain and its tricks. We want stories that don't clearly belong to any one genre, stories that will get our hands dirty, stories that expose the worms wriggling under the rock.

A partial list of influences: Leonora Carrington, Brian Evenson, Amelia Gray, Jenny Hval, Shirley Jackson, Franz Kafka, Han Kang, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Sabrina Orah Mark, Flannery O'Connor, Bruno Schulz.

We strongly encourage women, trans and nonbinary writers, and writers of color to send us work.

guidelines:

• We publish in January, May, and September; our submission window is year-round.

• Send your work as a .doc or .docx to surelymag@gmail.com—no cover letter necessary, but feel free to say Hello.

• Please submit one short story (2,500 words max) or up to three flash pieces (500 words max) per issue. We aim to respond within 1 to 3 months.

rights:

Upon acceptance, we ask for first serial rights. After publication, all rights revert to the author. (Unfortunately, we do not offer compensation at this time.)

resources:

We do take simultaneous submissions (but not previously published works), and we know a lot of work goes into finding the right home for your writing. Here are some places we like for finding more outlets:

• Chill Subs

• Driftwood Press: Where Else to Submit

• Duotrope

• Heavy Feather Review: Where to Submit

• New Pages

We are currently reading for our 28th issue (we were formerly Shirley Magazine). We hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Colleen Burner (they/them) and Lauren Perez (she/her)
Editors