Theme
Give us your castaways, your tales of remnants and remainders, of subsistence against the odds. What is left behind? Who walks among the ruins? Why do I have this vestigial arm? We want your fiction, memoir and poetry touching on what is left after the war, after the centuries, after the singularity; your reflections on eking out an existence on the crumbs left behind by the rich, your tales of remnant religious sects, of echoes from the past resonating in our time, or other themes as inspired by REMNANTS.
What We’re Looking For
We are looking for original poems, memoir, and fiction artisinally produced by human writers. Pieces that bend or explode genre are of particular interest, as are authentically weird, queer, mad, or otherwise fringe perspectives. Above all, we want well-crafted stories featuring some interesting take on the theme.
What We’re Not Looking For
We do not accept fanfic; any fictional characters or setting featured in your work must be your own original creation. No simultaneous submissions or work that has already been published elsewhere, and no AI-assisted material. We are not seeking essays, direct commentary, or opinion pieces.
Editors
Spoon Knife 11 will be co-edited by J.S. Allen and Mark A. Nobles.
Timeline
The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2026.
Contributors will be notified of acceptance or rejection no later than January 2027.
Spoon Knife 11 will be published in May 2027.
Submission Format
All submissions must be Word documents (.doc or .docx files) formatted to meet the following criteria:
– 12-point Times New Roman font
– 1.5 or double spacing (no single-spacing except poetry or block quotes)
– First line of each paragraph indented
– No extra whitespace between paragraphs
– Consistent use of Oxford commas
– Thoroughly proofread and spell-checked
– For em dashes, please use the em dash character (not a hyphen or pair of hyphens), with no space between the em dash and the surrounding words.
Important: On the title page, be sure to include your email address.
Photographs and other imagery will not be accepted. Although we love a good concrete poem, poetry relying on complex formatting on the page will not be accepted.
The maximum length for submissions is 10k words. Exception: You can assume this limit to be flexible if you’re an author whom we’ve previously published or whose submission the editors have actively solicited.
Submission Process
Submit your document(s) online at this url:
https://app.box.com/f/
Editorial Process
You will receive an email from the editors no later than January 2027 notifying you of acceptance or rejection.
If your piece is accepted, we will ask you for a short bio written in the third person, no more than 150 words in length, with the exact name under which you wish to be credited. We will also ask for your mailing address for the purpose of shipping a complimentary copy of the book to you.
Our process, on acceptance, includes a close copy-edit. We will check in with authors if any significant change is needed beyond fixing typological errors. We do not send author proofs to individual contributors.
Payment
Payment for accepted submissions will be $30 plus 1 cent per word, sent near the time of the book’s release.
Questions?
Email sean [at] autpress [dot] com.
Photo credit to Brian Smith.