If justice reigned in the world of publishing, all writers would have a fair chance at publication. Knowing the contrary is the case, and having sent masterpieces to publishers who declined to publish them, and having then seen stories of (to us, anyway) clearly lesser value published instead, we came to the obvious conclusion that the writers getting published were (you can say it with me)

Friends of the editors!

In fact the idea for this site came from Michael Martone, an inspiring (and amusing) instructor who leads a non-traditional workshop at the Postgraduate Writing Conference in Montpelier, VT. (Michael credits a friend, Michael Wilkerson, for giving him the idea) The editors braved his 2008 workshop, during which a discussion of publication amongst those assembled ensued, concluding that getting published is a crapshoot. With the web undermining the music and print industries, including print literary journals, Michael M. suggested a web journal site entitled...(drum roll)

Friends of the Editors!

[disclaimer for Michael - he never suggested that our writing was publishable or that those getting published shouldn't get published... it was late, we'd had a few beers.. writing workshop, y'know?]

So, what can you expect to find here? Good writing by friends of the editors. Wonder how you can become a friend of the editors? Send us your stuff, tell us your tale of woe - (walls lined with rejection letters, ninety-three rejection emails from Glimmer Train, etc). If we like your story and you seem as worthy of pity as we feel we are... you can be a friend of the editor and get published here.
What might also happen is that one of the editors will read your material and suggest changes that could lead to publication here.
Please note that the only compensation that comes with publication here is the notoriety of being part of FOTE. That said, crank it up!

Good luck. Remember, pathos!

We hope to make this website a little more pleasing to the eye, rather than an exercise in 5th grade html (apologies to any offended 5th graders).

Submission guidelines:
If you are trying to establish yourself in the porn, romance, or Christian-fiction genres, best of luck and all that, but please do NOT submit to FOTE.
Length: we're not trying to salve the wounds of novelists here - who can afford that much salve? Let's make the max length 30K words (digital storage is cheap, not free).
One cautionary note: short stories are harder to write than novels. Chapters of novels submitted as short stories are often unmasked, usually because they don't quite hold up.

If you've survived our vicious vetting process, we want electronic submission only - tuck your work in the body of your email.
Send to:submitfote@gmail.com