I've been the Fiction Editor at 3:AM Magazine since 2023. I commission, edit, and publish between thirty and forty pieces of prose per year. I say "pieces of prose," not "stories," because fiction at 3:AM tends to be formally irreverent, innovative, or indeterminate. Occasionally, I'll publish standalone excerpts from novels that display similar qualities.

Over on Substack, I've written some notes on what I'm looking for as an editor, as well as some reflections on the qualities I appreciate about the work I publish at 3:AM. Very broadly, I've identified thirteen varieties of prose that I favour in one way of another:

The Irrepressible Voice

The Rant That Reveals

Voices From Other Sources

Fictions of the Absurd and Fabular

Realism With a Hole In It

The Narrative of Elusive Meaning

Into Unreality: The Plunge and the Tilt

Towards Unreality: The Tiptoe and the Glimpse

Shards and Splinters

Prose Poems

Formally Playful Fictions

Fictions of Rescission

Fictions of Abstraction

Submissions to 3:AM usually open in December each year and close in January of the following year. In the call-out for submissions, I always say that I don't really have a preference for any particular genre; I'm much more interested in form. Here's my general advice: "The only requirement is inventiveness of style or structure — or, preferably, both. There are no prescriptions on what this might look like in practice — a short, sharp sentence of Lutzian terseness is as welcome as a Bernhardian rant — except to say that your work has to have a voice or a timeflow that distinguishes it from the sort of stuff that usually wins accolades." I also recommend that prospective writers take a look at these dozen pieces of prose to get a sense of what I always hope to publish: