Editor Interview: Viridine Literary

Innovative with heart

Old favourites include Private Eye and New Statesman, for their cutting-edge journalism and sensitive coverage of the arts.
In terms of indie publications, we're fans of NECKSNAP for their dark content and gorgeous editions, and we love the eccentricity of HAD.

We both have quite different tastes in writers. Roger names his three favourites as William Goldman, John Le Carre, and Noel Coward, while I'd slide more toward Chuck Palahniuk, PG Wodehouse, and Oscar Wilde.

We make a concentrated effort encourage submissions from older writers (particularly those who are new/emerging). It's too easy, as the years tick by, to feel 'too old' to start something new or to chase fresh opportunities; we believe it's never too late, and you don't have to start young to be fulfilled and successful.
We also accept submissions of scripts, which is less common in the world of litmags.

We want to publish writers who value their craft. Demonstrate your mastery of language and show us you understand the structure of your chosen form, even if you're subverting tradition. The difference between a writer deliberately breaking the rules and a writer who doesn't understand the rules is fairly obvious.
Also, proofread your work! If we receive a story that switches tenses halfway through, or a poem with spelling errors, it doesn't make for a great first impression.

The ideal submission hooks us immediately and ends on a gut punch. It demonstrates a strong command of language and a character-led narrative that engages from the first to the final line.
We love a wide variety of genres and we're not picky about subject matter; just give us something well-written and with feeling.

We could write an essay on this! Common issues include: receiving submissions via email (we only accept submissions through a Google form) and outside of our submission windows; receiving password-protected files; submissions that do not adhere to our themes; and submissions that exceed our stated word/line counts.
All our submission guidelines are easy to view on our site (and these are linked within the submission form), so basic errors like these show a lack of attention to detail. We want to publish great work, and the guidelines exist to make this easier for everyone!

For us, the work itself is paramount. We only ask for a name on the submission form; if the work is accepted, then we'll request a bio. We don't want to be unfairly swayed during the reading process by a person's publication history or demographics. Many new and emerging writers won't necessarily have an impressive portfolio of award nominations or book contracts, and this shouldn't become a self-imposed obstacle to submitting.

We generally make the effort to read everything fully; we're happy to work with writers to make their pieces the best they can be. However, there are occasions when it's apparent from the opening of the work that it isn't what we're looking for, and it's hard to come back from that. That's why a strong opening is so important!

Both of us have to agree to accept a piece. It's not enough for one of us to love it if the other isn't keen. We've both had to let go of pieces we've greatly enjoyed because of this!

We both have full lives outside of Viridine. Jobs, families, the general stressors of everyday life. However, we set aside time to read the submissions and rate them with comments in an exported spreadsheet. We then discuss these during weekly meetings in local cafes, where we try to make one coffee last for several hours and make decisions about which pieces we'd like to accept.

It really depends on the piece. Sometimes we'll only have a couple of light suggestions, and other times our suggestions will be more substantial on a line-by-line basis. We do what we feel we need to do to bring the best out of the writing. We always send the suggested edits to the writers to either approve or reject; it's important to us that the author is happy with the way their work will look when it's published.

In 2025, we nominated for Best of the Net, and we hope to continue this, as well as nominating for further awards, as we grow.

In sweat and blood. There are only two of us, and it's a labour of love. We receive no outside funding. We did sell a few print copies of our third issue, but this left us with a loss. We do this for the love of great literature, and even if we never receive a penny for it, it's worth it to share talent and quality writing with the world.

We use Instagram and Bluesky to promote our issues and submission calls, as well as to highlight individual authors and artists we've published. We're also listed on Chill Subs and Duotrope.