Literature has been fully commoditized. A book is a unit of value. Story widgets.

The success of a story is measured by its ability to be consumed. How many readers did it touch? How many publishers thought they could make money off of it.

Self publishing allows us all to become our own storyfarms. Analyze the genre for trends and themes. Bend the plot to the tastes of the reader. Give them more of what they already love. The customer's always right.

Words on a page aren't a vehicle for stories. 8.5 x 11 inches of digital paper and little black serifs are an artistic medium. This project is devoted to exploring what you can do with it.

We publish the un-marketable experiments. Experiments in form, in language, in genre. Stories that no longer function as stories. Any guidelines we add to this list immediately collapses the possibilities into a genre. Break the guidelines. Show us what we mean by experimental.

Writing like this will never grant you notoriety. Thank God. Your work will die in obscurity. Here's a box to put it in. May we all fade to black doing something that mattered.

WordArt is a biannual anthology of experimental fiction, published in print, digital, and hybrid form.

What counts as experimental?

We know what experiment often looks like: work that plays with form, with language, with genre. Metafiction, cybertext, found fiction. Etcetera. But experimental literature by its very nature defies bounding boxes. It causes you to consider the form of literature in ways you never have before. What it can do.

Experiment is less about the outcome and more about the ethos behind it. It's about knowing what you want to say and treating all the tools of writing as possibilities of how you might express that thing.

In the spirit of experimentation, WordArt has no limits on word count or formatting—but here are some things to consider before submitting:

1. This will be included in a publication alongside other works of experimental literature. If your work takes up too much physical space such that it would require us to accept fewer pieces for the anthology, it is likely too long.

2. Experimental works are typically most effective when absorbed in a single sitting, so keep that in mind when you consider length.

3. Experimentation does not include experimenting with hate. Your work can explore themes of bigotry, but if we sense that your work is promoting hate of any marginalized group, it will be rejected.

We accept works of mixed media, interactive, HTML, or just about any other format you can think of. However, for initial submission, please send piece in either .pdf, .jpeg, .tiff, .wav, or as a link to a hosted website. We work individually with each accepted author to ensure your work is formatted and presented for publication in the way that best suits the intention of the piece.

We will not discriminate against any writing method—however, if your piece is co-written with AI there better be a damn good thematic reason.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please inform us as soon as your piece is accepted elsewhere.

All work can be submitted through our Submission Manager link, however, if your work does not fit the file formats accepted by Submission Manager, you can email it to us at submit@wordartligmag.com

To submit your work, visit our Submission Manager page at this link.

If you are unable to access Submission Manager for some reason, you can email us your submission at submit@wordartlitmag.com

Before submitting, make sure to read our guidelines, light as they are. They'll help to guide you.

In the distance, the castle looms. Its spires appropriately imposing. Its sky eating light.

What is it doing here? A question for which you are the answer. For it is, you know, as much a construct as it is a castle. An archetype made of collective understanding. Text on a digital page.

But as much as you question its corporeality, you know what you seek lies inside. That fact does not change, no matter how much you want it to.

Enter the castle.

Go home unchanged.

In the future, you will be able to purchase all issues of WorkArt LitMag here.

But of course, we don't have any issues yet. Because we're just getting started.

If you're excited as we are about the future of the literary form—to see it melt through the bars of its enclosure and steal the faces of passersby—keep checking back. We'll have an issue for you to put into your eyeholes soon.

We are three people.

• Adam Dove: Prose Editor
• Eva Phillips: Poetics Editor
• Nora Peters: Designer

But you don't want to talk to us. You want to know about the magazine.

In that case, you can reach us here. If you have any questions, from what it takes to be published in the magazine, to what we have upcoming, to what we think words like when they squeezed through an axon, you can use that email.

You can also check out our thoughts in visual form on Instagram. We'll post updates on the submission process, upcoming publications, events, and everything else there.

If you need somethign else that can't be found in those places, you may want to try prayer and/or ritual.