Fiction needs room for danger, grief, conflict, flawed people, and uncomfortable questions. These guidelines do not require cheerful stories or morally perfect characters. They explain when presentation, context, consent, audience, and foreseeable harm matter.
Creative range
We welcome horror, crime, romance, speculative work, satire, family stories, and difficult subjects handled with purpose. Depicting harmful conduct is not the same as endorsing it. Editors consider what the work asks the reader to notice, whose humanity it recognizes, and whether graphic detail serves the story.
Material we may decline or restrict
- targeted hatred or dehumanization aimed at protected or vulnerable groups;
- credible threats, instructions for serious wrongdoing, or exposure of private personal information;
- sexual exploitation, non-consensual intimate material, or any sexualized depiction of children;
- content created mainly to harass, defame, impersonate, or manipulate a real person;
- plagiarism, unlawful copying, or submissions that conceal ownership problems;
- dangerous misinformation presented as verified fact outside an appropriate fictional or critical context;
- spam, covert promotion, fraudulent opportunities, or undisclosed paid placement.
Content notes
Writers should disclose graphic violence, sexual violence, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, abuse, cruelty to children or animals, and similarly intense material. A content note is not a judgment on the story. It lets editors choose responsible placement and lets readers make an informed decision.
Children and family audiences
A children’s story should suit the age range claimed for it. Mild fear, sadness, and conflict can be valuable, but vocabulary, intensity, commercial messaging, and personal-data requests require special care. Submissions from minors need appropriate adult involvement.
Real people and lived experience
Changing a name does not always make a person unrecognizable. Memoir-like fiction can affect privacy, safety, reputation, and confidential relationships. Writers should consider whether a detail is necessary and whether consent is appropriate.
Inclusivity and voice
Writers may create characters unlike themselves. Curiosity, research, specificity, and humility matter. We may question stereotypes that reduce a group to a plot device or use trauma merely as decoration.
Enforcement
We may request context or revision, add a label, limit visibility, decline publication, close comments, or remove material. Decisions consider severity, intent, pattern, audience, legal duties, and the possibility of repair.