We’re giving writers the opportunity to create an entirely new art. Short stories which use motifs and pieces of the past– combined in new ways to become unlike any short stories before seen.

Our goal is to give readers the shock of the new. Which means, having the ability to unhinge expectations.

How will that happen?

It will happen by merging the best elements of both the classic popular story of bygone days, and the more recent, carefully-written “literary” kind of story recycled in writing programs across the country.

It will happen when story writers become ambitious enough to move with their art beyond the bounds of the familiar, the acceptable, the safe. In order to create new art you first have to imagine creating it.

For ways to write this hybrid, this all-new story, we make suggestions, then step aside.

We suggest that stories be readable. We prefer short paragraphs of clear sentences. We like fast pacing. We’re not averse to form and complications. Hooks; plot. Drama and excitement.

We like writing that’s visual. Which means, not layers of accumulated detail, but the apt adjective– the quick mention of a color or sound, eyebrow or gesture. A drink or a sandwich. The timely added word or phrase used like a daub of paint.

We recommend emotion and energy– passion from the writer about a story’s events, people, and theme. A belief that art is the greatest expression of the human animal; the highest achievement.

A belief in themselves and their art is what those who reinvented art forms in the past– Van Gogh, Debussy, Hemingway– brought to their artistic scenes.