* Online lit mags are publishing some of the most intriguing writing available today. Every Monday, I post a pointer to a site that offers fiction and/or poetry either as free content or as samples from subscriber issues. Today’s pointer is to Bartleby Snopes.
Bartleby Snopes was recently included in Flavorwire’s 10 Online Lit Mags You Should Be Reading:
The publication focuses on short fiction, but the range of its subjects and styles makes up for the lack of other literary genres. In other words, you won’t find stories of marital drama, gratuitous sex and violence, or self-indulgently navel-gazey artistic angst.
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Bartleby Snopes is an online literary magazine with several goals in mind. We want to publish the best new fiction we can find. We want to give the many writers out there an opportunity to publish their best work. We want to inspire you to create great works of fiction.
We currently publish two stories per week and end each month with a Story of the Month contest. We also publish our favorite stories in a semi-annual magazine format available as a free pdf download every January and July.
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Fiction Excerpt:
The Incident with the Artist
by Steven BerkowitzA gleaming silver moon shone high up in the night sky as waves of anxious, curiosity-driven people flooded into and–when no more could fit inside–in front of the artist’s loft. Those who had arrived earliest, the artist’s close friends and chief appreciators, had found a spot for themselves in his small crowded studio; they watched him closely and were filled with joy and awe as he came nearer and nearer to finishing his masterpiece, a work of art that was rumored would be, upon its completion, peerless in beauty and absolute in its perfection. It was said that prior to starting the piece, the artist had been visited by an angel, and the angel did nothing but slowly move its hand to the artist’s forehead, lightly pressing its center with two glowing, divine fingers.
Akopos 