Hello Readers, I know this is a couple of days early for this week’s newsletter, but given that tomorrow is Halloween I want to announce a very cool and exciting new project coming to Brief Ecology starting next year: Rotting Leaf Magazine!
Rotting Leaf Mag is a new online, literary magazine that will be published under the Brief Ecology umbrella. This will be a place for literary and experimental explorations of the eco-gothic, the eco-horrific, the eco-surrealist, and the eco-weird.
I believe that art is a legitimate and important way that humans engage with nature, and to that end, Rotting Leaf Magazine is meant to be a literary inquiry into what nature is and how we understand it.
Below are some initial details for both readers and writers.
For Readers
Rotting Leaf Magazine stories will be free to read, and will be delivered via email in exactly the same way as all other Brief Ecology newsletters. You do not need to subscribe to anything additional if you’re already a Brief Ecology reader. The pieces will also be available to read on the Brief Ecology website.
Our first piece will be published in January, 2026. We will publish one new piece per month, and then an in-print anthology collection at the end of the year. Each piece may also be accompanied by a short essay on Eco-Fiction from the corresponding author. These essays will go out first to paid subscribers of Brief Ecology.
For Writers
More formal submission guidelines will be made available soon, but for now, here are the basics for Year One:
The first round of submissions will open in December.
Submission windows will open on the first of each month: For one week or until 50 submissions are received, whichever occurs first.
Payment: $0.06/word ($30 minimum) + contributor copy of annual anthology
Words: 1,500 or less
Simultaneous submissions are allowed (as they should always be)
Things we’ll be looking for
Eco-fiction (broadly defined)
Eco-Horror
Eco-Gothic/Anti-gothic
Haunted/Unhaunted Landscapes
Transcorporeality
Eco-Surrealism/Existentialism/Absurdism
Complex Characters and Interiority, Unreliable Narrators, Metafiction
Any other uses of Eco-Fiction that challenge, shift, or obliterate the nature-society binary
Each published author will be offered an additional, optional by-line in the form of a mini-essay (500 words or less) to respond the the question: “What does ‘Eco-Fiction’ mean?”
Contract details: Story rights will return to the author immediately upon publication, but RLM reserves print publishing rights for annual anthology.
Jumping out of my pants with excitement.
Looking forward to this, it’s a concept I never knew I needed!