Silent Motorist Media is currently open to submissions. We’re looking for quality weird or experimental writing of 1,000 words in length or less. Our rate is half a penny per word.

While we’ll happily accept poetry and short fiction, we’re particularly interested in weird essays, book, or film reviews. “Weird,” in the context of nonfiction, refers to the subject matter you address, the style and format of your work, or (even better) both. Think Fleur Jaeggy’s Three Possible Lives or Eliot Weinberger’s An Elemental Thing, not in the sense of “write like them,” but as fruitful demonstrations of creative experimentation in nonfiction.

As the great essayist Montaigne pointed out, “essay” means “attempt.” We want to publish essays that boldly attempt something; whether they succeed or fail is of little to no consequence. A beautiful failure is better than a thousand bland successes. For our second round of open submissions, let’s celebrate the essay; let’s attempt to say what cannot be said.

Send all submissions to the SMM email. Please include an author bio and photo, as well as any links you want us to publish with your work.

-Justin A. Burnett