Don’t aim. Just shoot. (Jim Carroll even riffed on it in Forced Entries.)
Vautrin is open to submissions from April 3, 2022, to May 3, 2022.
Gritty urban fiction. Jim Gavin’s Middle Men, Mary Miller’s Always Happy Hour, or Becky Mandelbaum’s Bad Kansas are good examples of what we mean by this. If you’ve written a compelling short story, though, no need to worry too much about “gritty” or “urban.” You may submit the story.
Crime/Mystery Fiction. Genre fiction is a fit at Vautrin. But if you’ve written a good short story with crime fiction elements that doesn’t necessarily seem like genre fiction, it could still be a fit.
The gist: Vautrin was dreamed up when the editor had been reading Balzac, Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant. It’s a short story magazine that is open to genre. No strict rules about what might work. Hit us with something good.
If you’d like an inside track on the type of fiction we tend to publish, the most recent issue of the magazine (Winter 2021) is available here: https://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780983679950
But the Winter 2020 issue is a good example as well. It featured Nikki Dolson’s “Neighbors,” (Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021), along with a host of other good stories: https://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780983679943
Fiction should be no longer than 6,000 words.
No flash fiction.
No reprints.
Limit one short story submission per writer.
Do we allow simultaneous submissions? Yes.
$130.00 and two contributor’s copies for fiction over 2,500 words.
$65.00 and two contributor’s copies for fiction under 2,500 words.
Address submissions to Todd Robins and send to:
We hope to hear from you.
