Crimson Street
What is Pulp?
According to Wikipedia, the pulp “magazines were best known for their lurid and exploitative stories and sensational cover art. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of ‘hero pulps’; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom Detective.”
Pulp magazines and the self-named pulp fiction which appeared in them were often seen as low quality, run of the mill literature. Literature for the masses.
In the context of Crimson Streets, Pulp is not a genre. It is not to be confused with Hard Boiled Detective fiction or Noir Fiction, although these themselves may be considered pulp.
Fiction
Crimson Streets is looking for fiction with a focus on action and atmosphere over characterization. Stores can fall into the adventure, aviation, detective/mystery, fantasy, hard-boiled, gangster, horror/occult, masked-vigilante, noir, railroad, war, and western/cowboy genres. We publish everything that could fall under the banner of pulp with the exception of Science Fiction. Science Fiction is a special case and deserves its own home. That’s not to say that stories from other genres couldn’t have Science Fiction elements, after all, where would Dick Tracy be without his wrist radio or a mad scientist be without his planet-destroying device?
We are looking for stories from 800 to 6,000 words. We are not interested in poetry, fan-fiction, or stories that fall outside of the broad umbrella of pulp. (If you think your fiction could win an award or be taught in an English class, then it’s probably not suited for Crimson Streets.) A work of fiction should be a quick read. While publishers of a more literary bent intend to be the “art house cinema” of the short fiction world, we intend to be the “action movie at the cineplex.”
We may be interested in serializing longer works such as novellas, but these only accepted if complete and then broken down for publication.
Articles
In addition to fiction, Crimson Streets will also publish a limited number of articles on topics related to the pulps. Ideas that come immediately to mind are on “Law Enforcement in the Pulp Story” or “A Guide to 1930s and 40s Slang”. Any article that would help an aspiring author of pulp stories may be of interest to us. (For an example, see Steven Long’s series of Pulp Archetypes which appear irregularly).
Submission Format
We do not accept print submissions. Every submission should be accompanied by query letter in which you briefly describe your submission in one or two paragraphs. Be sure to provide your address, phone number, and email address. Please send your submission in either a Microsoft Word (.doc) file in Rich Text Format (.rtf) to editor@crimsonstreets.com.
Word Rate
Crimson Streets is a web now/print later publication. When stories and articles are accepted, they first appear on the website at www.crimsonstreets.com in the new fiction feed. From time to time anthology editions of Crimson Streets will be printed that collect the stories and articles from the website.
Our standard rate is 1 cent per word of final, edited length.
Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions
Please do not send more than one submission at a time, or a submission which is currently being considered by another publisher.
According to Wikipedia, the pulp “magazines were best known for their lurid and exploitative stories and sensational cover art. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of ‘hero pulps’; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom Detective.”
Pulp magazines and the self-named pulp fiction which appeared in them were often seen as low quality, run of the mill literature. Literature for the masses.
In the context of Crimson Streets, Pulp is not a genre. It is not to be confused with Hard Boiled Detective fiction or Noir Fiction, although these themselves may be considered pulp.
Fiction
Crimson Streets is looking for fiction with a focus on action and atmosphere over characterization. Stores can fall into the adventure, aviation, detective/mystery, fantasy, hard-boiled, gangster, horror/occult, masked-vigilante, noir, railroad, war, and western/cowboy genres. We publish everything that could fall under the banner of pulp with the exception of Science Fiction. Science Fiction is a special case and deserves its own home. That’s not to say that stories from other genres couldn’t have Science Fiction elements, after all, where would Dick Tracy be without his wrist radio or a mad scientist be without his planet-destroying device?
We are looking for stories from 800 to 6,000 words. We are not interested in poetry, fan-fiction, or stories that fall outside of the broad umbrella of pulp. (If you think your fiction could win an award or be taught in an English class, then it’s probably not suited for Crimson Streets.) A work of fiction should be a quick read. While publishers of a more literary bent intend to be the “art house cinema” of the short fiction world, we intend to be the “action movie at the cineplex.”
We may be interested in serializing longer works such as novellas, but these only accepted if complete and then broken down for publication.
Articles
In addition to fiction, Crimson Streets will also publish a limited number of articles on topics related to the pulps. Ideas that come immediately to mind are on “Law Enforcement in the Pulp Story” or “A Guide to 1930s and 40s Slang”. Any article that would help an aspiring author of pulp stories may be of interest to us. (For an example, see Steven Long’s series of Pulp Archetypes which appear irregularly).
Submission Format
We do not accept print submissions. Every submission should be accompanied by query letter in which you briefly describe your submission in one or two paragraphs. Be sure to provide your address, phone number, and email address. Please send your submission in either a Microsoft Word (.doc) file in Rich Text Format (.rtf) to editor@crimsonstreets.com.
Word Rate
Crimson Streets is a web now/print later publication. When stories and articles are accepted, they first appear on the website at www.crimsonstreets.com in the new fiction feed. From time to time anthology editions of Crimson Streets will be printed that collect the stories and articles from the website.
Our standard rate is 1 cent per word of final, edited length.
Simultaneous and Multiple Submissions
Please do not send more than one submission at a time, or a submission which is currently being considered by another publisher.
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