The Battered Suitcase - Submission Guidelines

Vagabondage Press, LLC

Submission Guidelines

The Battered Suitcase is currently closed to submissions for poetry,

We are open for submissions for short fiction, artwork and narrative non-fiction through July 31, 2009.

We will be closed for all submissions during the month of August.

We accept English-language submissions for publication in our magazine, which is currently published quarterly.
The Battered Suitcase only accepts submissions by email. Please do not send us hard copy submissions.

What We're Looking For:

We welcome all genres: literary, experimental, mainstream, speculative, paranormal, poetry, narrative non-fiction, and humor. We don't wish to hang labels on good writing. If your story is an erotic romance written in a literary style in a future alternative universe, by all means, we want to see it. Visual poetry, a collage of words and images - please send it. We hope to provide a safe space for writers who've gone underappreciated because the industry has led them to believe that they don't fit a particular format. We hold no editorial bias in regards to stories for or about individuals of any race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or planet of origin.

By submitting your work, you guarantee that it is your own original work, you hold the copyright, that it does not infringe on existing copyright material, is not libelous and has not be previously published in any form. Publication in electronic form to personal blogs or journals is acceptable, however, please let us know when you send us your work.

Fiction: Please submit manuscripts of any genre up to 8,000 words for consideration. For works of more than 3,000 words, please provide a pitch line in your cover letter. For manuscripts longer than 8,000 words, please send a query and brief synopsis and word count for further consideration.

Poetry: Any form, although we prefer looser, more contemporary poetry. Haiku is a particular favorite with the chief editor. Visual poetry incorporating words and images is also welcome.

Non-Fiction: Narrative non-fiction, commentary, slice of life, memoirs, revolutionary manifestos and particularly humor pieces are always most welcome.

Artwork: The Battered Suitcase is interested in receiving high quality visual art submissions for inclusion. Please submit a sample your work in .jpg format at 96dpi, sized no more than 850 pixels wide. If you would like to submit photos of your three dimensional pieces (sculpture, installations, etc., please do so.   All artwork featuring individuals should have an associated signed release.

How We'd Like To See It:

Please check your work for obvious spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, or have it proofred by a literate friend or associate. Intentional misspelling and colloquialisms are a given and we like to think we're clever enough to deal with them.

Please submit all work via email to submissions@vagabondagepress.com.   Put the type of submission and title of the work in your subject line. For example:
"Submission, Short Fiction, Brody's Lost Dog" - "Submission, Art, Girl with Hatstand" - "Query, Novella, All Is Not Well"

Please include your name, psuedonym (if used), the title of your work and a brief bio and/or link to your other work and your email address in both your email and your document.

Submit written work as an attachment in Word (*.doc) or .rtf format. Please do not forward in .docx, .pdf, or .wps. If submitting poetry, please submit all of them in one document.

If submitting artwork, please include a brief statement about yourself and the work you're submitting..

We welcome simultaneous submissions, but please notify us if your work is accepted and will be published elsewhere as soon as possible. Please notify us by email with the title of your work in the subject line.

The Battered Suitcase responds to submissions in as timely a manner as possible. Please allow 45 days for prose and up to 60 days for poetry and artwork. If you haven't heard back from us within 45 days, please email us to query with the title of your work in the subject line.

What We Don't Want:

We cannot publish fan-fiction, fan-art or translations of foreign language works by other authors. Feel free to translate your own, original foreign language work for submission if it has not been published before in English.

The Battered Suitcase accepts erotica - but cannot publish hardcore or pornography. You can send it and we'll probably read it, and we'll forward it to each other with the all the really good bits underlined, but we may not be able to publish it. Erotic elements as part of character development or plot are perfectly fine - you'll find us exceedingly open-minded, so don't be afraid to submit your work. Fine writing is always appreciated and we may be able to incorporate it under our future erotic imprints or anthologies.

If you have previously appeared in The Battered Suitcase, please wait at least 6 months before submitting other work for consideration. This will be waived for special, seasonal issues.

What's In It For You:

We don't sell advertising, so sadly, we cannot pay for publication in The Battered Suitcase.   We do provide a weblink to sites where your work is being sold and promoted, and our site is regularly indexed by major search engines.   Vagabondage Press will be soon expanding into eBook and print publications. Authors who have been selected for inclusion into The Battered Suitcase will be given first consideration for book publication. After all, if we liked your work enough for the magazine, it's very likely we'll want to see more of it. Once established, our book lines will offer publication with generous royalties paid to the author.

Rights :

Upon acceptance, The Battered Suitcase assumes first online publication rights only and the right to include your work in the future online archives of the magazine.   We assume no print rights. We ask for exclusive online rights for 30 days from publication, after which you are welcome to publish your work elsewhere online. For reprints in future online formats, we ask for a link back to our site with a reprint statement. Please let us know if your work has been already been seen in a personal online page, blog or journal. We understand that writers, especially new writers, often post their work for feedback. We encourage this practice, but we need to be made aware of the location.