Neon & Smoke: Annual Love Issue Gold Star Program Gold Star Free Tip Jar Option

2nd Annual Love Issue

Submissions open October 1–30
Publication: February 2027

This call is for all our hopeless romantics. The ones who believe love can arrive in a moment—and, quite frankly, those who say fuck love.

We call those folks hopelessly unromantic.

You're invited too.

We want the bliss and the heartache.
We want the erotic and the intellectual.
We want the love that saves us and the love we probably should have left alone.

We don't want black-and-white love. We want love that sits in gray. We want messy, complicated shades, and absolutely Black love.

Tell us about when the gay became straight and the straight became gay. Tell us about the ten men who boarded a rocket ship only to discover there are no women on Venus.

Give us strange love.
Give us bad luck.
Give us love that makes us cry.

Just give us love—however you understand it.

PS. We interpret love broadly. Romantic, platonic, familial, sexual, obsessive, lost, found, regretted, imagined... we could go on.