CleanSheets.com

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CleanSheets.com 
A Celebration of the Erotic Mind

Founded in 1998, Clean Sheets is a premier venue for literary erotica on the Web, with over 3,000 readers a day, viewing millions of pages every month.. We publish all new material every Wednesday. An impressive percentage of what we publish is picked up by major print anthologies each year, including Susie Bright's Best American Erotica series, the Best Women's Erotica series, and Mammoth Books' Best Erotica series. Clean Sheets welcomes tales of all sexual persuasions, and we are open to both established and new writers. We have two special-issue months -- July is our Erotic Feast, and February is devoted to the eroticism of travel. Clean Sheets' independent publishing arm, Samba Mountain Press, publishes the critically-acclaimed From Porn to Poetry print anthology series, along with publishing individual works from Clean Sheets' contributors (including Blue the Color of Desire, which first ran as a serial in Clean Sheets, and the new Mike Kimera book, Writing Naked).

Clean Sheets is also a proud sponsor of the new annual Rauxa Prize for erotic writing, which carries a $1,000 first-place award.

Fiction Guidelines

A. What We Want:

Clean Sheets Magazine has many sections, each with its own editors and guidelines. For fiction, we want intriguing characters, compelling plots, fresh, intelligent perspectives, and sex that seers your motherboard. We don't want "stroke" stories, but we love steamy lyrical pieces. The best way to catch our drift? Browse our archives, which are free to everyone. We want stories that represent the broadest possible range of lifestyles, cultures, red-hot play, and deep emotion.

We accept reprints and simultaneous submissions (be sure to tell us when you submit). We generally publish fiction from 1500-3500 words. Shorter pieces may be submitted to our Exotica section. You may publish under a pen name, but for publication we'll need your real name, which is kept strictly confidential. We take editing seriously, and if your work is accepted, we will take the time to work with you to polish your story to the highest standards.

B. Payment:

There is a payment of $25/story for fiction at this time, and we also provide unlimited links to your work and other publications. Clean Sheets publishes a regular print anthology (From Porn to Poetry), and if your work is selected for inclusion, there is an additional payment, and those rights will be negotiated at that time.

Excerpts: We are open to publishing promotional excerpts from print publications (selections, individual stories, or chapters), often along with reviews.

Rights, archiving and links: We request one month, one-time electronic rights. We'll also ask you if you'd like your story placed in our archives, where it can remain until you ask us to withdraw it.

C. How to Submit

We receive hundreds of stories each year. Please follow our guidelines exactly to assure you get careful consideration. We generally reply within one month. If you have not heard back from us within that time, please contact us.

1. Send one story at a time, in plain ASCII format in the text of an email, to fiction@cleansheets.com 

2. Subject line FICT SUB story title

3. Bracket italics or other text with special formatting in asterisks.

4. We do not accept attachments.

Poetry Guidelines

We are looking for poems on a broad range of erotic themes. We are interested in provocative poems about all types of lifestyles and cultural perspectives, all forms of sexual play and insights on the nature of eroticism.

We would like to see all of the following in all of the work Sexuality of the oozing kind; clear, clean, sharp images maybe (or maybe not) cloaked in filigree; explicit language used in different ways; inventive use of line breaks and fresh, fresh metaphors. Allusion, innuendo, crescendo and diminuendo, and always in blue. The best way to see what we are looking for is to read the poetry at Clean Sheets.

We do not accept or reject poems solely on the basis of style, meter or rhyme. We accept simultaneous submissions and reprints. Please be sure to note such submissions in your cover letter.

We prefer poems of 100 lines or shorter. We request that authors submit no more than five poems per month. Unsolicited submissions in excess of this count will not be considered.

Poems can be published under a pseudonym, but your real name is required for publication, which will be kept strictly confidential.

Your poem will run for four weeks on our front page, and then will be included in our Archives if you grant us permission to do so.

Send three to five poems in the body of your e-mail (mail to poetry@cleansheets.com)

plain text, no attached files, and all poems in one e-mail. Subject line should read POETRY SUB Your poem title.

Single space the poem, and double space between stanzas. Please explain any spacing concerns for figured poems; Web pages appear differently on different browsers, and we need to know your intentions so that we can translate them into Web markup. The text should be plain ASCII format in the body of your e-mail message, not an attachment.

Response time will vary, but we try to respond to all submissions within a month. If you haven't heard from us within a month, send us an e-mail inquiry.

B. Payment

There is no cash payment for poetry at this time; however, we do offer to send you a copy of any one of the Samba Mountain Press books highlighted on the front page of the Clean Sheets bookstore. We also provide unlimited links to your work and other publications. Clean Sheets publishes a regular print anthology (From Porn to Poetry), and if your work is selected for inclusion, there is an additional payment, and those rights will be negotiated at that time.

Exotica Guidelines

A. What We Want

Exotica things excitingly different or unusual; esp literary or artistic items

Dazzle us. Give us something we've never heard or seen before. Short scenes, personal essays, one-act erotica, creative non-fiction, single photos -- anything that doesn't fit into our normal sections. Unique, interesting, sexy, fun -- these are the key words. Great writing is always helpful too. Propose serials to us; propose new and fresh ideas; we're listening, and we love the erotic imagination. Keep your work anywhere from 300 - 1500 words. We'll showcase it for four weeks, provide bio and links, and send you a copy of any one of the Samba Mountain Press books highlighted on the front page of the Clean Sheets bookstore. Proposed serials will have additional payment negotiated upon acceptance.

Email submissions to exoticasub@cleansheets.com 

 
Essays and Reviews

Please send queries regarding non-fiction essays and reviews to editors@cleansheets.com. The Clean Sheets free archives will give a clear picture of the types of things we are looking for in non-fiction writing.

General contact information

For general inquiries about Clean Sheets or Samba Mountain Press, please contact Susannah Indigo, Editor-in-Chief (susannahindigo@yahoo.com).

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