A New Kind of Literary Pulse

With Short Circuit, we’re hoping that each issue will add something new to inspire, delight, move, and challenge readers, transporting them outside of their daily lives, if even for five minutes. Sometimes Short Circuit will be themed; sometimes it won’t. If you submit a piece in April and it isn’t published in the next Short Circuit, that doesn’t necessarily mean it hasn’t been selected. It could simply be that it just wasn’t right for that particular issue.

Please give our editorial team up to 4 months to get back to you about your submission.

1. Prose and Poetry Guidelines

• All submissions must be submitted via this submission platform in a copy/paste format. We cannot respond to unsolicited submissions via post or email.


• We welcome submissions from established and emerging writers alike.


• Submissions must be short stories, creative nonfiction pieces and poems of maximum 7,500 characters (spaces included) or children's works of maximum 7,000 characters.


• Regarding Poetry: because the Dispenser paper is only 8cm wide, we advise you to take this into consideration when formating your poems. One line on the Dispenser holds approximately 40 characters, spaces included.


• Works must be previously unpublished in print or online, including on personal blogs.


• Fictional works may be any style or genre, excluding erotica.


• We pay 100 euros for each selected short story/creative nonfiction piece and 50 euros for each poem as an advance payment on royalties that each author will receive on a yearly basis. Royalties are paid from Short Story Dispenser subscriptions and vary on how many Dispensers the selected piece circulates in.


• Each selected piece will be published as a part of Short Circuit in our Short Story Dispensers around the world and on our website, short-edition.com/en.


• Simultaneous submissions are accepted but please let us know as soon as possible if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.


• Concerning rights to your work, we ask for:
  
  • the exclusive right to publish your work in our Short Story Dispensers or any similar vending machine.
  • the non-exclusive right to use or adapt your work as a basis for audio.
  • the non-exclusive right to publish your work via all other media, such as on our website.
• Regarding multiple submissions, we accept:
  
  • up to 3 poems,
  • up to 2 children’s works,
  • and 1 short story/creative nonfiction piece at a time.
  
  

2. Comics Guidelines

Here is how it works:

• All submissions must be submitted via our submission platform.


• Comic strips must be previously unpublished in print or online, including on personal blogs.


• We pay 100 euros for each selected comic strip as an advance payment on royalties that each author will receive on a yearly basis. Royalties are paid from Short Story Dispenser subscriptions and vary on how many Dispensers the selected piece circulates in.


• Each selected piece will be published as part of Short Circuit in our Short Story Dispensers worldwide and on our website.


• We ask for the exclusive right to publish your work in our Short Story Dispensers or any similar vending machine and the non-exclusive right to publish your work via all other media, such as our website.


• We accept up to 10 comic strip submissions at a time.

Technical guidelines:

• When submitting your comic strip, you can either use JPEG or PNG formats. The file must have a minimum resolution of 175 dpi (dot per inch).


• Due to the width of the Short Story Dispenser paper, we only accept vertical strips. Horizontal submissions will not be eligible.


• Keep in mind that, once printed, your comic will not be more than 7 cm wide (2,75 inches) and 100 cm long (39,37 inches).


• We only accept submissions in black and white. Submissions in color will automatically be refused.


• You may include 1 mid-tone shade of gray in addition to black and white. Due to the limitations of the Short Story Dispenser printer, grays that are too dark and more than one shade of gray can print together and your comic will no longer be legible. Your gray should be 30-40% solid gray. If you are unsure your gray will be visible or solid, stick to black and white.


• We do not recommend pencil as it doesn’t have consistent coverage and will make your submission look uneven when printed. Likewise, we do not recommend using ink wash or watercolor, the delicate changes in value will be reduced to muddy tones when printed. Pens, solid markers, solid ink tones and digital illustrations have the best print quality.

And here are a few examples, to make the constraints more explicit:

From the Heart
Pablo Vasquez

Ornithology
Dara Nabati

Eternal Winter
Bertrand Pigeon

Cyber Reputation
Lucille Blay

Monster!
Ilya Yudovski

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