Painted Pebble Lit Mag (PPLM)

Painted Pebble Lit Mag is a quarterly journal publishing quality short-form writing cultivating community, connection, and kindness. We celebrate our wonderfully diverse world of writers and readers. Like “little” pockets of literary communities, we think small works can have a big impact. Each issue is published online and as a PDF, each available for free. The PDF is formatted to be easily distributed by hand to neighborhood book shares, community centers, waiting rooms – anywhere people might find comfort and connection in these pages. In this way, we hope to reach a wide audience of readers and writers beyond traditional publishing paths.

We share the same goals as seed shares, community gardens, and other community mutual-aid efforts. We want to delight readers who are already aware of literary journals and to inspire new readers and writers — especially those outside of colleges and universities.

Quota: This project has established a quota. Submissions will close when it is reached.

Short Shorts Free Tip Jar Option Open

Closes on Thursday, July 31, 2025 11:59 PM EDT (in 14 days).

Welcome to Painted Pebble Lit Mag’s community.

PPLM is a no fee/no payment publication which celebrates all forms of short writing. Our issues are released in the first month of each quarter.

Duosoma uses genre designations. While we have calls under each genre, we don’t feel genre’s divisions are useful for our readers and submitters. We enjoy short-form works in all its iterations, all submissions go into the same pool of work being considered.

Looking forward to reading your submission!

Eligibility:

We welcome work from anyone ages 18 and up worldwide.
Submissions must be your own work, and in English.
We accept work that has been translated into English, with original text and complete, accurate attributions. Please make sure you have the full permissions of the original author.

Formatting your submission:

Anonymize. Remove your name from the work you are submitting. The only place your name should appear is in the cover letter.
Titles. Name each file with the title of that piece. If it doesn’t have a title, please do not use “untitled” - instead, please use the first few words of your piece.
Attribution. We request that work that is “after” another author attribute both the writer they are responding to, and the title of the original piece. If your work quotes lines from another piece, we ask that the source text be properly attributed as an endnote.
Visual work. We are looking for visual pieces which engage with language in some way beyond merely illustrating a piece of writing. Please submit these in the visual art category. We are not looking for other kinds of visual art at this time.
File format. If your work requires alternate file formats, please email us here: [[email protected]] to inquire.

Rights & Publication

We ask for first North American Serial rights. PPLM will archive all published pieces online at paintedpebblelit.com and in a print version of the magazine, available to download.
All rights revert to you after publication. Please acknowledge Painted Pebble Lit Mag in all future publications.

Ethical Considerations

We will always reject submissions which are intentionally incendiary.
We publish only work created by people. We will not publish work which uses AI.
We don’t publish reprints, including work which has already appeared on social media or personal blogs and websites.

Submit