Submission Guidelines
Offal is seeking literary fiction transcending the boundaries between human spirit and human essence, the visceral penumbra of the contours of the soul as evinced through the lived experience of the hearts, lungs and entrails of the body politic. Offal wants to publish the finest human emissions available. Offal yearns to publish you, to lift you from the tear-strewn sleeper couch of obscurity, tuck you into our warm bed of pompous mediocrity, and spoon you. Offal needs to inject your words into the punctured tramlines of its veins like a literary speedball. All submissions should be professionally typeset in 24pt Light Comic Sans with a kerning of 1.5 and leading of -0.3, etched by hand onto a non-erasable 12” shellac and laminated in the congealed tears of an editorial intern from a major publishing house. In order to submit, please position yourself, doused in petrol, on the street outside our editorial headquarters in London, mournfully howling in a south-westerly direction, holding your submission aloft like a holy sigil, and await further instructions. Should our editors accept your submission, you will be notified by a series of urgent yet mysterious hand gestures. Ceremonial spoon must be affixed to your submission. If you have ever managed to read right to the end of Moby Dick, please daub your manuscript in a crude rendering of a white whale. Do not at any time attempt to approach our Commissioning Editor on foot. This will likely result in injury. We accept work of any shape, size or length, but no submissions should be longer than a Stockhausen libretto. Unfortunately, OFFAL is unable to accept the following:
–Engorged memoir
–Northern miserable
–Turgid Bildungsroman
–Your experiences, feelings, or any works containing the words ‘in my feels’
–Second-rate second-person present tense about first responders on their last legs
–Purple prose, prosimetrum or poetry (for pity’s sake, please don’t send us your fucking poems)
–Oxbridge
Offal is committed to publishing a range of voices, even that really high-pitched one you do when you’re about to climax. We particularly encourage submissions from people under the stairs, those living on low-frequency modulation ranges, or literary agents who just need a way out. All submissions will be read by an editorial panel whose tastes vary, but as a general rule you should know that we don’t tend to like anyone. Our submission windows will be open at first moonrise of the intercalary month of the ancient Umma calendar, according to the express wishes of our Founder. Please include your address. We regret that we are unable to respond personally to individual submissions, but we reserve the right to wait outside your home, waiting, watching, always watching. No correspondence will be entered into, and the Editors’ decision will be fatal. Please note that, due to the sheer volume of writers’ egos we manage on a daily basis, it may take us up to 9–12 months to reject your submission. Contributors are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the contents of their spleen before submitting. We look forward to receiving your OFFAL.