Burning House Press are excited to welcome M. FORAJTER as the second BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today M. will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of JULY.

Submissions are open from today – and will remain open until 25TH JULY.

M.’s theme for the month is as follows

—ART & ANNIHILATION: contemporary gothic writing in the Anthropocene—

ART & ANNIHILATION: contemporary gothic writing in the Anthropocene

“The energy of the poem penetrates and re-penetrates the rotting native land with ghosts, junk, corpses, skin, denigrating terms, and denigrated materials in order to engender a counternativity, an occult rebirth as ghostly reanimation. In this way the poet incestually forces his own rebirth, not as a liberated man but as a kind of infernal, spectral double, a production of the text: “And behold here I am!” -Joyelle McSweeney, The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults

BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR! + microplastics + dandelion +  flawed pearl + fruit punch + The Relic + baroque + “when does a meadow stop being a meadow” + jackalope + bowl of teeth + i am sad, so sad + a ceaseless keening + still skeptical + lilac + Lizzie Borden took an axe + Joan of Arc : : Gilles De Rais + “search at the dump concluded today with” + tiger pelts + je me lance + the biologist + dense + decadent + nonpotable + “ob-scene[…] their filthy beauty” + disposable + “the pastoral, like the occult, has always been a fraud” + heavy water + contamination readouts + bonsai tree + shotgun +  “no conclusive evidence of substantial impact on wildlife” +  wild boar + many wolves + pine + “life finds a way!” + slight asymmetric measurements + “don’t drink milk or eat tomatoes” + MELODY,   GLOUCESTER + sunflower  remediation +  fortitude + end of the world + gross body + ecological anxiety +  HUMANS,         HUMANS,         HUMANS.

Contemporary ecological concerns are often countered with talk about environmental justice.  What does justice mean to a corpse? I’ve read too many books where hapless environmentalist do-gooders try to sell me the silver lining in mass extinction and planetary collapse. Some people are very excited about the possibilities in fungus. Some people are vegetarians. Some people make art. Autoerotic asphyxiation takes many forms.

Send me decadent poetry peddling vegetal, venial filth; fiction that is more sensation than sense; writing with mutated romantic hearts; visual art both florid and tortured. Send me your most purple perfume reviews & pimple pops, your psycho killer love letters, your apocalypse day planner. Tell me what credit cards you ate for lunch yesterday; your most recent sperm count. I want a lush gothic novel written by a half-imploded billionaire at the bottom of the sea; I want Melancholia & Flannery O’Connor & Lara Glenum & Only Lovers Left Alive.

Good luck.

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M. Forajter is the author of Interrogating the Eye (Schism Neurotics, 2022), a poetry-essay on the poetics of looking/the gaze and the ecstasy of art making. Her work focuses on experimental poetics, the gothic, and the effects of the Anthropocene on non-human ecology. She really likes Nirvana, werewolves, and medieval art.

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Submission Guidelines

All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com

Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: ART & ANNIHILATION/POETRY

Poetry and Fiction

For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.

Virtual Reality/ 3D Artworks

For VR Submissions, please submit no more than three (3) individual artworks. For Tilt Brush works, please upload your artwork to Google Poly (https://poly.google.com/), and mark it as ‘public’ (‘remixable’ is at your own preference). A VR/3D artwork can also be submitted as a video export navigating through the artwork. If you prefer this method, please upload your finished video file to YouTube or Vimeo and provide a URL. With either format, please provide a 150 word artist’s statement.

Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.

Submissions are open until 25th JULY – and will reopen again on 1st AUGUST 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing M. FORAJTER– friends, arsonistas, send our JULY 2025 guest editor your magic!