Hello slush readers! This page is just for you. It’s your one-stop-shop for guidance in separating the diamonds from the coal in our slush mines.

If there are other questions you’d like answered or content you’d like to see available here, please let us know! Happy reading!

Where To Find The Stories

Our process uses Moksha, an online platform for receiving, reading, reviewing and responding to our submissions. You’ll have received an e-mail from us previously with login details.

What We’re Looking For

We look for stories that create a sense of wonder. If you can’t finish the story fast enough, or if you find yourself nodding and smiling along, you’re probably on to a winner.

Here’s an excerpt for our full submission guidelines:

As a young adult fiction podcast, we’re looking for stories that evoke a sense of wonder and have something unreal about them. We aim for a 12-17 age range: that means sophisticated, non-condescending stories with wide appeal, and without explicit sex, violence or strong language. Think Harry Potter or The Hunger Games.

We like fiction that makes us think, but the main element should be thrilling entertainment and adventure. We prefer “high” fantasy — elves, dragons, secondary worlds, and magic — to the more cerebral forms of fantasy you find in adult markets. We like all forms of science fiction: far-future, near future, space opera, “hard” sci-fi — but it must be accessible to our target audience which means a minimum of complex jargon. The same goes for horror, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and other genres.

Does this mean all our stories feature children or young adults as characters and protagonists? Absolutely not! A good story appeals to all ages. Some good examples include “Cosmetic Procedures” by Desmond Warzel (a noir horror detective story) and “Gods of Stone” by Jeff Samson (the thoughts of a gorgon victim).

What Doesn’t Work

Again, check the full subs guidelines. There’s no hard and fast rules when it comes to finding the right story, but here are some things that have led to rejection in the past:

• Too young (middlegrade stories)
• Wrong for age group (substantial technical jargon, moralistic/preachy, too cerebral)
• No sense of wonder or emotional resonance
• Too long (we like around 3500 words and outright decline over 6000 without prior permission)
• Not a story (a collection of images, scenes or vignettes with no connective flow)
• No speculative element (we’re not a literary market)
• Fridging (gratuitious death of a disadvantaged person as plot motivation)
• Any of the entries on our longer What We Don’t Want list in the guidelines

Some Tips On Reading

How you manage your story queue is up to you. Some people prefer to read in a solid block of time, and others prefer to read a single story per session. Experiment around and find what works for you.

Sometimes you’ll encounter a story that’s bad. The grammar and punctuational may be awful. The story may be a cookie-cutter of a blockbuster movie. Or it may meander endlessly, or just plain bore you. If you find yourself skimming ahead to find “a good bit”, that’s a sign the story isn’t holding your attention and isn’t working for you. If that happens, stop reading. Really, it’s okay. You don’t ever have to make yourself grit your teeth and read to the end of a piece you know won’t get your vote. All it does is waste your time and good will. Make note of what about the story is causing you to react, so you can explain it in your comment, and move on.

What You Need To Do

Now that you know some of what we are and aren’t looking for in a story, you’ve logged into the Moksha portal and before you is a (hopefully) long list of stories, all marked as “In Progress”. You’ve picked one and read it – now what?

Moksha functions through comments. Each time you read a story you need to do two things: vote and comment.

Voting is straight-forward, just use the Yes (thumbs up), Maybe (neutral) or No (thumbs down) buttons on the header of the story. We encourage you to use the Maybe option sparingly.

Commenting involves writing some notes on what you did or didn’t like about the story. When you’re finished click “Add Note”, and your comment will be saved.

That’s it!

What We Like In Comments

Detail. Tell us what worked about the story for you, and what didn’t, regardless of how you vote. You can read other readers’ comments as well, but don’t let them convince you what you think of a story is somehow wrong. Different viewpoints are valuable, especially when you vote Maybe.

Any type of comment is fair game. Did you like a particular turn of phrase or narrative approach? Did a character seem to contradict themselves, or a particular element of the story feel unnecessary? Was length any issue, making the story feel either too long or underdeveloped? We always strive to pass along feedback with rejections in the hopes our authors will continue to develop their work and submit again. We also include alternate podcasting venue suggestions for stories that are good, but not right for us. If the story you’re reading qualifies, say so in your comment.

Remember to save early and often. Connectivity hiccups can happen, and you don’t want to lose your work.

Happy reading, and if you have any questions get in touch. Thank you!