Writing for A Little Bit of Magical Realism
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What is Magical Realism?
Read the first page of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and you’ll find out quickly. In the opening lines, he has two Gods falling to earth having a conversation about what they want to find down there.
In short, magical realism weaves myth into everyday life. Reality and imaginary blend and ordinary become extraordinary and nothing seems bizarre. It has little to do with magic and more to do with questioning the nature of our world and the reality that surrounds us. All these elements combined give the reader an insight into society and humanity.
Magical realism is not fairy-tales. Nor is it horror, absurd or science fiction.
If you ever read Aesop’s fables as a child you’ll know where most people start their journey.
What We’re Looking For
To be considered magical realism your writing must have at least the first five elements below. The sixth element, distorted time is not essential but is commonplace in a lot of magical realism fiction.
1. Events that defy logic
2. Folklore and parables
3. Societal concerns
4. Real world settings
5. A dispassionate narrative voice
6. Distorted time
Aristotle said there are essentially two types of story, tragedy and comedy. We think the more interesting stories come from the darker of the two because that’s what everyone can relate to. And life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns in popcorn.
Submission Guidelines
By submitting a story for publication to A Little Bit of Magical Realism you agree to comply with all of the following requirements:
· Submissions must be fiction or poetry. We do not non-fiction.
· For poetry submissions, they must be a 1-minute read.
· For fiction submissions, they must be under a 10-minute read.
· All submissions must comply with Medium’s Rules and Ad-Free Policy.
· Submissions must be made through Medium using the process described below. Do not send us emails with links or attachments. They will be ignored.
· Submissions must fit within our guidelines “What we’re looking for” above.
· Titles should be written in title case. Titles written in all capital letters will be changed or rejected.
· We reserve the right to reject content we deem offensive or inappropriate for our audience.
· We do not accept stories that are published in other publications on Medium.com. If your story is published on an external site, simply add a line at the bottom stating that this was published here first.
· All submissions must include a featured image recommended at the top of the story. Stock or otherwise. If no image is present, the editor will add one at his/her discretion. (You can change it later… but first impressions won’t be of your choosing.) If you don’t know where to look try Unsplash. It’s free and they’re high-resolution.
· Images included in your submission must be something you have the right to use and must include a cited source as the image caption.
· We reserve the right to remove questionable images from submissions.
· Once a story has been accepted and published by A Little Bit of Magical Realism on Medium it may not be removed and/or added to any other publication on Medium. This does not limit you from publishing the story on any other site.
· We will cease to accept articles from people who remove stories from our publication.
· We will publish a maximum of 1 story per day per writer.
· Please do not spam us with submissions. If you have more than 5 articles in our submission queue at any given time you will be removed from the publication.
· We typically publish daily, but turnaround time may be up to 5 days from submission.
· Story submissions may be edited for grammar and formatting. Poetry submissions will not be.
· Significant suggested formatting or content edits will be discussed via private notes to the author before any changes are made or the piece is published.
· Cartoons? No.
· Comics? No.
· No, we do not pay our writers.
· Novel Excerpts? No. Not unless it’s a complete story in and of itself with discernible story shapes and narratives and cadences.
· Serial Fiction? Email us with your pitch and let’s talk.
Writer Request Form
Writers who have not been previously published by A Little Bit of Magical Realism will need to request to be a contributor by filling out our:
By requesting to become a contributor, you agree to our Submission Guidelines.
New writers are added manually every few weeks. Notification will come from Medium confirming addition to A Little Bit of Magical Realism.
Please understand new requests take time to process. If you spam us via multiple requests, you will be rejected.
Due to a limitation on the number of writer slots available, writers who do not produce content within 30-days may be removed to provide space for new writers.
How to Submit a Draft
Once accepted as a writer for A Little Bit of Magical Realism follow Medium’s process for adding a draft to a publication.
Partner Program Submissions
By submitting a story for publication to A Little Bit of Magical Realism as part of the Medium Partner Program, you agree to comply with the previous requirements and the following additional requirements:
· Partner Program submissions must follow all of A Little Bit of Magical Realism’s requirements and Medium’s Content Guidelines and Curation Guidelines.
· To submit a story to the partner program, please lock it yourself .
· Any money earned on a story is set by Medium and is not controlled by A Little Bit of Magical Realism.
· Payment is distributed by Medium on the terms laid out in their Partner Program agreement.
Future Changes
What are the changes you want to see in our publication? Leave your responses below.
