The Brussels Review: Fiction Gold Star Program Gold Star Fee: eur €5.00

What we look for

Stories rarely fail because they are badly written. They fail because they are not new. Send us a story only you could have written: not the subject, but the angle, the treatment, the voice. Surprise us through how you tell it, not through what happens.

Genre means nothing to us. A love story set in space is a love story. A ghost is a device, not a category.

Keep your characters in the story, not at the centre of every sentence. Let the energy live in what happens.

If you write in the first person, your narrator must confess, not testify. A narrator who only watches the hero and reports on him is not needed.

Don't explain, and don't end on a moral.

Length

One story of up to 7,000 words, or up to three short stories totalling no more than 7,000 words. Stories under 3,000 words are considered for web publication only.

Format

• All stories in a single document, each clearly titled.
• Your contact details and a short bio at the top, under your real name. Tell us where you live, what you do, and one small fact about your life. No list of publications.
• Plain formatting: no decorative fonts, colour or images.
• English throughout. Beyond a single word or phrase, untranslated passages are not accepted.
• doc, docx, txt or rtf. PDF files are not accepted.

Translations

Include the names and contact details of both the original author and the translator.

Originality

Unpublished anywhere, including personal blogs, websites and social media.

Simultaneous submissions

Welcome. Tell us at once if the work is accepted elsewhere.

Response schedule

Decisions go out in the first week of June and December.