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SEPTEMBER 2025 Guest Editor Is Alexander Booth!!! THEME/S: LANDSCAPE // LABYRINTH

Burning House Press are excited to welcome Alexander Booth as the fourth BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today Alexander will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of September.

Submissions are open from today 1st September – and will remain open until 25TH SEPTEMBER.

Alexander’s theme/s for the month are as follows

—LANDSCAPE

LABYRINTH—

Black Square and Red Square by Kazmir Malevich

_____

LANDSCAPE // LABYRINTH

*

When the painter’s friends, however, looked around for the painter, they saw that he was gone—that he was in the picture. There, he followed the little path that led to the door, paused before it quite still, turned, smiled, and disappeared through the narrow opening. 

–        Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900 (trans. Howard Eiland)

*

Each one of us, then, should speak of his roads, his crossroads, his roadside benches; each one of us should make a surveyor’s map of his lost fields and meadows. 

           Gaston Bachelard (trans. Maria Jolas)

*

“Though Minos blocks escape by land or water,”

Daedalus said, “surely the sky is open,

And that’s the way we’ll go. Minos’ dominion

Does not include the air.”

–        Ovid, Metamorphosis (trans. Rolfe Humphries)

_____

Alexander Booth is a poet, translator, collage artist and printmaker who lives in Berlin. Recent translations include books by Friederike Mayröcker, Alexander Kluge, Gerhard Rühm, and a new translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. His collection of poems Triptych was published in 2021 and Kantor in 2023.

__________

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: LANDSCAPE/POETRY Or LABYRINTH/FICTION

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 SEPTEMBER – and will reopen again on 1st OCTOBER 2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing Alexander Booth – friends, arsonistas, send our SEPTEMBER 2025 guest editor your magic!

JUNE 2025 Guest Editor Is JOHN TREFRY!!! THEME: INANIMISM

Burning House Press are excited to welcome JOHN TREFRY as the first BHP guest editor of our return series of special editions! As of today JOHN will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the month of JUNE.

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

JOHN’S theme for the month is as follows

—INANIMISM—

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: INANIMISM/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 JUNE – and will reopen again on 1st JULY2025/for new theme/new editor/s.

BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing JOHN TREFRY – friends, arsonistas, send our JUNE 2025 guest editor your magic!

The Red Thread by Stephanie Parent

My Ariadne can see the future.

(My Ariadne. This is my version of the story.)

She spins her red thread, and it twists into shapes before her eyes, hearts and nooses. It tells her that Theseus turns out to be an asshole.

Seven young men and seven maidens arrive on the island, and Theseus outshines them all. His eyes are the sky blue of someone who believes he cannot fail, who believes he has no darkness within him. Those eyes make Ariadne dream of flight.

Theseus wonders how such a creature as the minotaur, half-beast, half-man, could be allowed to exist. Ariadne doesn’t tell him the last of the halves: the monster is her half-brother. In the evening she dreams of blue eyes, but her hands twist and turn the red thread. At midnight she dreams of mazes like arteries and veins, running red and blue.

Ariadne gives Theseus a coiled ball of thread the size of a heart. She tells him the thread will guide him out of the labyrinth.

Continue reading “The Red Thread by Stephanie Parent”

La Brea by Sarah Neilson

You and I, we should go to the tar pits. Let’s stare at what was once life. We’ll inch closer together, becoming one creature, an unconscious attempt to metastasize in the face of ancient grandeur. I’ll wonder if they – the mastodons – ever thought about the end of the world. You and I do, all the time, but alone. Doomsday would take on the lure of a sunset if we endured it together, I’m convinced.

A conversation I sometimes imagine begins:

I’m so glad you take care of yourself. My father died when he was younger than you.

More staring at life.

I’m so sorry, you’ll say. Doesn’t everyone start there? But you’ll mean it, understand it, because,

You know my mother – you’ll begin.

I know, I’ll say, her death unspoken. Continue reading “La Brea by Sarah Neilson”

Intinction by Amy Barnes

“Father, there are no palm branches.”

“How did you let that happen? Never mind, bring me the ashes.”

The deacon dutifully brought the marble jar before scurrying away to hide behind the altar’s red velvet throne. Father Orson pulled off the heavy lid to survey the contents before tucking the jar under his arm like a slaughter hog.
Continue reading “Intinction by Amy Barnes”

Ten Simple Instructions for Complex Acts by William Cordeiro

after the FLUXUS Performance Workbook

1. All performers conduct a different hygiene routine: floss, clip toenails, wash hands, put on deodorant, shave, pluck eyebrows, etc. They may trade routines in a fugue-like pattern if they wish. Their tempo should correspond to the movements of a symphony.

Continue reading “Ten Simple Instructions for Complex Acts by William Cordeiro”

Please Note: This Sleep Clinic is Fragrance Free by Tamara Sellman

TECH NOTES:
Room 2 – 6.17.2015
EMR #1421 – DOB 12.25.1981
JASMINE “JAZZ” ABRAHAM

PATIENT at lab tonight for a nocturnal polysomnographic assessment (NPSG) following complaints of excessive daytime sleepiness. Ordering physician will review data before ordering nap tests to rule out sleep disordered breathing as primary diagnosis.

PATIENT arrives noticeably sleepy. During 10/20 procedure, conversation lulls are induced by frequent microsleeps, but PATIENT is easily aroused.

Continue reading “Please Note: This Sleep Clinic is Fragrance Free by Tamara Sellman”

how did we get here -A Flash Fiction by Stephanie C. Odili

how did we get here

Content Warning – Childhood Sexual Abuse

Continue reading “how did we get here -A Flash Fiction by Stephanie C. Odili”

Flash fiction by Tim Agaba Baroraho

Continue reading “Flash fiction by Tim Agaba Baroraho”

Circles: 4 Prose Fragments by Mapule Mohulatsi

(“North-east Jo’burg at night”by marco sees things is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Continue reading “Circles: 4 Prose Fragments by Mapule Mohulatsi”

The Budgies of Broadway by K Dulai

(Image by Werlley Meira Pexels free to use licence)

My grandmother’s neighbor came over crying and yelling about how she couldn’t find one of her budgies and she was afraid the worst had happened to it.  She lived in the studio next door and I went in not knowing what to expect. I had been in an old lady’s home before, my grandma’s for instance, but I got the sense that once you hit a certain age (and grandma wasn’t there yet) you lose track of things. Things like order, and dustpans.

Continue reading “The Budgies of Broadway by K Dulai”

Postcards to Body of Color — Whiskey Radish

Continue reading “Postcards to Body of Color — Whiskey Radish”

DOORS EDITION

DECEMBER 2018

GUEST EDITED/CURATED BY JAISHA JANSENA

Continue reading

Flash Fiction & Two Poems by C. L. Ayre 

Between your [social] legs

Sometime in the past, B was born..

B breathes, welcoming the air external to the host person.

A: ‘What is between your legs, little one?’

B cries.

A: ‘Congratulations, it’s a.. >insert binary pronoun here< .’

B cries, again.

A: ‘What are you going to call >insert corresponding binary pronoun, here< ?’

Sometime later, after B has spent years experiencing on earth..

B: ‘I still breathe, and cry. The questioning human at my birth got the pronoun wrong. It was a mistake to think that my anatomy somehow directly corresponded to a distinctive set of social behaviours. Or, knowingly or unknowingly, any attempts to make that the case. Other determining factors which continue to make me me, were quite underestimated, overlooked or ignorantly bypassed. As were possibility and actuality.’

B Pauses.

B: ‘Yes, I have something between my legs, and person/human/homo sapien is my name’

A: ‘What is between your.. social.. legs, big one?’

B: ‘A variety of focal points for questioning. And I may not be one, but many. And why the assumption of ‘I’, anyway? But that’s for another time.’

Continue reading “Flash Fiction & Two Poems by C. L. Ayre “

MONGREL by Jelle Cauwenberghs

Continue reading “MONGREL by Jelle Cauwenberghs”

As Day Breaks by Tianna Grosch

Continue reading “As Day Breaks by Tianna Grosch”

Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate

Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate – here is the final edition of all selections curated by James Pate during the month of June 2018 for his theme of Liminal Spaces – thank you so much to James for all his hard work during the month and for the impeccable way he managed and curated his month’s editorship. To have been avid readers and fans of James’ writing – especially his essays during the days of the incredible and much-missed Montevidayo site – to have James collaborate on BHP for a month has been such a dream experience. Thanks, James! – and Thank You So Much to all who contributed such magic work to the theme – Here it is, June 2018 guest editor James Pate’s Liminal Spaces edition – enjoy! Continue reading “Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate”

Skin by Olga Dermott-Bond

“When you change the bed sheets, keep your mouth shut – you don’t want to breathe in other people’s dead skin.” Continue reading “Skin by Olga Dermott-Bond”

Masks, Transformations, Cosmos, & Personal Myth

March 2018

Guest Editor: Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

4 March

 

Professional Mermaid by Megan Dunn

After the 10th Date by Sam Frost

gibbous moon waxing by Lewis Ellingham

Three Poems by Jared A. Carnie

Charon’s Amusement Arcade by BR Williams

 

 

10 March

 

Three Poems by Laura Potts

Plastic Eggs by C.B. Auder

Night Photos of Newstead Village & a Poem by Sophie Pitchford*

L’Idole by Laura Izabela

Two Poems by Annette Skade

A Bacon Sandwich by Jim Gibson

Solitaire by Attracta Fahy

 

 

17 March

 

Three Poems by Ivan de Monbrison

Forgotten Astronaut by Spangle McQueen

What Else Can I Do? by Rob True

How to Tell Men Apart by Breslin White

Invitation To Move On by Jonathan Humble

Two Poems by Kate Garrett

Stealing Sleipnir by Alison Lock

The Transformation by Emma McKervey

 

 

24 March

 

Three Poems by Samuel J Fox

Sing a Song of Ever Changing Perception by Michelle Diaz

Photographs of Bristol & a Poem by Jason Jackson*

When Food Goes Bad by Kelly Froh

Two Poems by Anna Wall

7yrs bad luck by Richard Biddle

Jack by Gene Farmer

 

 

30 March

 

Two Pieces by Erin Calabria

genesis by Clark Chatlain

Baroclinic Instability by katillac tweed

A Catalogue of Small Shatterings by Makensi Ceriani

Bear off a Leash by Stephen Lightbown

Photographs of New Orleans by Julia Skop*

Two Poems by Kate Dlugosz

Interminatus by Cory Willingham

The Boyfriend Pinch by Christopher John Eggett

Dissociation in a Museum Café by Belinda Rimmer

Two Poems by Soodabeh Saeidnia

The Linen Man Suite by Lorie Broumand

An Interview with Poet Laura Potts by Amee Nassrene Broumand*

 

 

 

Featured Image: Solar Eclipse from Salem, Oregon 2017 by Amee Nassrene Broumand

Individual featured images by Amee Nassrene Broumand unless marked with an asterisk

The Linen Man Suite by Lorie Broumand

The Sale

 

The linen man was having a sale. The townspeople got up early to buy linens.

The linen man had boasted of his sale for seven years, and the townspeople were driven by a rabid impatience. They’d pressured him to hold it now, and then now, and so on.

On the day of the sale, the town was caught up in a colossal heat. It was uncommon, so early in the summer, and the townspeople swung their limbs in wretchedness. Henny and Ida claimed the temperature had increased daily as the sale neared.

Others noticed this, too; worse, the air took on a density that smelled of flowers. It was clear from the smell these flowers had flourished in the heat, grown large in it, and died. The townspeople chose not to say anything, as it was unpleasant in a variety of ways. They held handkerchiefs over their faces as they walked to the linen sale.

The sun hadn’t come up yet, and all but one of the streetlights along the linen man’s street had gone out. It was too hot to fix them, so no one had, and the solitary light turned the air an uncomfortable green.

“There’s something linen-like about that shade of green,” said Mrs. R.

“It’s not the shade of green you’re noticing, it’s that machine sound,” said Mr. L.

“It’s the smell,” said Ms. X, “which is clearly linen in nature.”

Mr. L and Ms. X were notoriously confident about the superiority of their perceptions.

Townspeople streamed into the linen man’s street. The machine sound was very loud there, and a large object shook under a piece of plastic.

Near the object was a crate of cubes.

The townspeople needed dishcloths, bedclothes, curtains, and shirts. But they saw none of this—merely the cubes, and the density in the air.

Mrs. R drew a line through the air, an involuntary motion.

“Linen sale,” called the linen man. He ushered the townspeople with his hands.

 

 

Continue reading “The Linen Man Suite by Lorie Broumand”

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