SmokeLong Quarterly

Over the next few months, we’ll be introducing our submissions editors so that you, dear writers and readers, might have a clearer idea of who we are, who reads your work first at SmokeLong, and what they love to see in the SmokeLong submissions queue. We are all writers at SmokeLong, so we know that sharing work can be difficult. Our submissions editors are all experienced flash writers and participate in the discussion throughout the editorial process. Your work is assigned to two submissions editors and sent to the senior editors if at least one of the submissions editors votes MAYBE on the submission. At SmokeLong we are always rooting for you.  – Christopher Allen, Publisher

This week, Clarie Gor has the submissions editors hot seat. See what she has to say about reading your submissions in the queue as well a little bit about what she’s currently reading and writing. – Melissa Llanes Brownlee, Senior Submissions Editor

What excites you about a submission?

I like to be surprised and delighted by a story. I like strange characters making weird choices.

What’s something about a submission that makes you want to give it a thumbs-up?

If it’s pithy and punchy. If you can knock the wind out of me with as few lines as possible, you’re more than likely to get a yes out of me.

What are you reading now – besides SmokeLong submissions?

I am slowly working my way through Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. It’s a hefty, loquacious book so I am supplementing it with shorter books in different genres. I just finished Collective Amnesia, a poetry collection by Koleka Putuma and I’m about to start How to Say Babylon, a memoir by Safiya Sinclair.

What are you writing now?

Some short stories. I am also kicking around a novel in my head.

What is your advice for writers submitting to SmokeLong?

Read the journal to get a feel of what kind of story we like. Read the submission guidelines carefully. You aren’t the exception to the rules.

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Clarie Gor is a Kenyan creative writer and journalist. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Equipoise, the 2020 anthology of the Nairobi Writing Academy, Catapult, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Audacity, Kalahari Review and others. Her flash creative nonfiction essay, ‘This Song My God, I Have Wept!’ won the February 2019 Igby Prize for nonfiction. All her work is archived on https://clariesramblings.com.

Gor is also the content curator for The Village, a community space for the global flash community by SmokeLong.