The Facebook Review

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18436918096

Welcome to the pre-natal version of The Facebook Review, the first and only Literary Review that uses Facebook as its means of publishing, of marketing, and of editing. We are essentially an online magazine with the (titular) difference of location. Our manifesto is humble and somewhat weak-kneed. Apologies. All we want is to publish the best work by Facebook members and to do so free-of-charge, free-of-cost, and completely within the confines of the Facebook network and software environment.

Process:

Submissions will be accepted, for now, from the following disciplines: poetry, short fiction (sub 1600 words), prose poetry, drama (again, sub 1600 words) and creative non-fiction. Other genres may be accepted at some point in the future. The first issue will have no set start date, and will go live at some point in the future when enough good material has been submitted and the group has enough “subscribers” (read: members.) That first issue will be edited by our managing editor, Jacob McArthur Mooney. All future editions (which will then occur in monthly installments) will be edited by something called an “editorial train.” What’s an editorial train, you ask? Please read on…

The Editorial Train:

All issues of TFR after #1 will be edited by the contributing authors from the previous edition of the review. For example, lets say issue #1 features work by 15 pink fluffy bunny rabbits. Once issue #1 goes live, our managing editor will forward the contents of his inbox to each fluffy bunny. The bunnies will read through the pile of would-be contributors and decide if they like any of them. Each bunny will then send the managing editor a “vouch” list of work they liked from the submitted pile, and the, say, 15 or so submissions with the most vouches will make up the content for issue #2. Understood? Then those writers in issue #2 (say, a bunch of hissing cockroaches) will make up the editorial staff for issue #3, and so on.

Presentation:

It’s extremely important to us that we have something of a symbiotic relationship with our hosts at Facebook. That means that the website’s “natural environment” must play host to all our activities. The issues will be published as events related to the group. Questions and other “letters to the editor” will be posted on the wall. Updates will be listed in “Recent News.”

Sound Good?

Great. Then do me us a favour and do one or both of the following: A) Hit the “Invite” button on the right and invite as many friends as you can think of and/or B) If you’re a writer, please dig through your tomes of great work and send a little something our way.

So, How Do I Submit?

Good question. Please post your work into the body of a Facebook message and send it to our managing editor via the link on the right. Just click on his name under “Officers” and send him a good old fashioned PM. Please type “Submission” in the subject heading. Please read the part above about what genres and lengths to abide by. Please feel free to include such things as profanity and (tasteful) sensuality/erotica, as well as previously published work. Please don’t send things that could be seen by a reasonable human being as pornographic, racist, sexist, or otherwise demeaning to the human condition. Please note that, like everything else on Facebook, your work will be forced into a very limited kind of structure (ie no fancy poetic formatting or even paragraph indents.) This is part of the fun of our environment. If your work’s success is contingent on either of the things just mentioned in the preceeding parenthesis, please send them somewhere else. Aside from that, we look forward to hearing from you.

Will Contributors Be Getting Paid?

No. And neither will anybody else. Your reward is publication and participation in this bizarre and unlikely experiment, both as a contributor and, as much as you’d like, as an editor.