About

Who we are

Pinko Press exists because the unusual tends to get filed under difficult, and difficult tends to go unpublished.

We publish short stories, novellas, and novels. The fiction we are drawn to is subversive in the way that good literature is always subversive: not by arguing a position, but by making the reader perceive the world differently for a few hours. We are interested in work that treats radical premises as a starting point, not a conclusion.

Literary quality is not negotiable. We are not a platform for correct politics in bad prose. A story can be socialist, punk, strange, grotesque, or all of the above, and still fail on the sentence level. If it fails on the sentence level, it is not for us.

Support for writers

We are small, but obsessive. Every piece we receive is read. Fully, or until we are certain it is not for us. If your work fits, we will offer editorial support, handle the business side, and pay above the standard royalty rate. Up-front payments are modest while we establish ourselves, and will increase as we grow.
If your work doesn't fit, we will tell you why, and point you somewhere it might.

Respect for readers

We will not coddle our readers, spoon-feed them, or entertain them to death. We will respect them enough to give them fiction that is new, strange, and nowhere near easy. We are tired of humans being underestimated.

Rigour for editors

We will not chase what we think will sell. We trust our taste, and will never make editorial decisions on the basis of commercial potential.

What we look for

Not this

  • Performed emotion
  • Explained metaphors
  • Correct politics in bad prose
  • Narrators asking for sympathy
  • Obvious redemptive arcs

This

  • The strange, handled without ceremony
  • Politics embedded in what the narrator notices
  • Writing that works on the sentence level
  • Questions rather than answers

Send us your work

If that sounds like the kind of house your work belongs in, send us your work.

Submit your work