Ongoing Submissions: Talk Vomit

Payment: $25 for personal essays and $5 per poem
Theme: Honest experiences, very open-ended, read below

You know that feeling when you have a lot to say about something and you just don’t know how to get it out but you know your words belong somewhere?

We want to be a home to those projects.

Whether you offer a short story you wrote about an anthropomorphized coffee maker falling in love in outer space, or that piece of prose poetry you’ve been working on about how your Amazon Prime orders increase significantly when you’re feeling depressed, or the zine you’re making about how the world seems like it’s on fire, we want to hear from you and help you share your story. Consider this a space to talk about your growth, your mental health, or a place for that bizarre piece of short fiction you think deserves to find a home.

We are currently seeking non-fiction, fiction and poetry.

In a time where the internet can be filled with listicles and a whole lot of repetitive nonsense, Talk Vomit aims, above all else, to be an honest space where writers of all identities, styles and experience levels are able to share and amplify their voices in what often feels like a world of endless gatekeeping.

Currently, we are able to pay writers $25 for personal essays (we hope to add short stories to this as soon as possible), and $5 for poems, playlists and art.

We have always been interested in being transparent. We know these amounts are not a lot.  What we pay writers is based on the money we earn from our Patreon. Our goal continues to be to create a space where the  internet feels fun again. This means supporting artists as best we can while we continue to grow.

We are actively fundraising towards this goal. If you are interested in helping us, please consider subscribing to our Patreon.

What do we write about?

Capturing honest experiences is our number one goal. Sometimes that translates into meandering personal essays about growing older, mixed-medium collages, or simply extolling the virtues of the latest TikTok trend. When considering whether your work is right for Talk Vomit, you might consider: What did you think about that book everyone’s talking about? Why should we all care about that little-known historical figure you’re growing increasingly obsessed with? What happens when an art installation goes up in downtown Philadelphia right before the world plummets into months of social distancing?

To give you a quick snapshot of what’s up on the site right now, our writers are currently talking about:

Relationships
Mental health
Self-improvement
Book, TV and Movie Discussions
Short fiction
Cultural criticism

We hope this is only the start of a growing list and that your ideas can add substance and dialogue to our growing collection of stories. Your perspective matters.

Our values

1. We want Talk Vomit contributors to have a strong voice. This may manifest through candor, humor, creativity, or insightfulness.
2. Genre can be limiting. We do not prefer “happy” or “sad” stories over one another. Life is messy. What we want is to see the real you.
3. We firmly believe that everyone’s voice matters. There are many communities who are simply not given equal opportunity to share their experiences. We firmly believe that generating dialogue about current issues is of the utmost importance. Women, writers of color and writers from the LGBTQ+ community are strongly encouraged to share their stories.
4. To that end, we are committed to doing the best we can and learning how to do better. See something you don’t like on the site? Talk to us about it.
5. Our number one goal is providing a platform where the only barrier to entry is producing sincere, quality work.

A few other notes:

Talk Vomit publishes work by creatives at every place in their career, both established and just beginning. One is not given priority over the other.

We ask that non-fiction pieces be kept under 4,500 words and that fiction submissions be kept under 2,000. As a general rule, we publish limited traditional poetry. We do, however, always consider prose poetry.

Have an idea for a recurring column? We’re into that, too.

If you are interested in submitting, please email [email protected] and begin with the subject line “Submission,” followed by the genre (i.e. fiction, non-fiction or visual).

Our submissions are always open.

Via: Talk Vomit.