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Welcome to "fleas on the dog" an online publishing company.

Our editors

EDITORS' BIOS

TOM BALL, Senior Editor (tomball33@yahoo.com)

Globetrotting Tom Ball has been chased out of more countries than he can remember visiting. A fugitive on the lam with an archaeology degree, he spends his days hiding under rocks writing fiction and other junk for his devoted readers here on Earth and also Mars. His real name is Tom Ball. He stills resides in the body he was born in. Tom has the final say on who gets published so you know what name to give the hit man if you don’t.

CHARLES PINCH, Senior Editor (fransj@bell.net)

You just know any dude whose name is a noun and a verb will end up being an editor at some literary hell hole. Writing before he was walking, editing before he was talking, Charles sees himself as an infant prodigy. Other people just see him as an infant. He holds in one of his three hands a double major in fine arts and philosophy and has published all kinds of fiction and other crap you better f***ing read if you want to get published here.

HEZEKIAH SCRETCH, Poetry Editor (editors@fleasonthedog.com)

Poetry editor Hezekiah comes with a wealth of experience gained from panhandling. When he isn’t hexing ammeters, he’s writing blank verse, which, despite his efforts turns out to be pretty much blank. A devout misogynist who failed spectacularly at charm school, he despises formal education, the likes of which granted him a PhD in comparative lit. Is he Man or Myth? Mandrake or Mephistophles?

JANET COLSON, Drama Editor (janetccolson@gmail.com)

Janet Ehrlich Colson (pronouns: she/her/they/them) has always wanted to be able to jump hundreds of times the length of her body and unapologetically cause itching and discomfort. “It’s almost as fun as pole dancing!” Janet is currently loitering in Lansing, Michigan with an MFA in playwriting and a hairless guinea pig named Rhoda. They have recently taken up badminton. Their favourite song is Home on the Mange.

RICHARD WANG, Junior Editor (zenmaster3301@gmail.com

Richard is a polymath who makes the rest of us feel inferior which explains why we're all in therapy. He has authored graphic novels, directs films (his own and others) while trying to remember he's also an engineer and speaks a couple languages none of us understand. At this moment he's drafting his Nobel Prize acceptance speech on a napkin. Oh yeah, he's also a napkin designer.

ROBERT QUEHL, Junior Editor (yoponyo@gmail.com)

Rob is the voice of sanity which is why the rest of us have trouble comprehending him. Rob is the rock on the shore who steadfastly watches us drown after warning us we can’t swim. (Hey Rob! Help!) Rob is the light in the room after the bulb kicks out. Rob is the author of a couple of books and has a perverse love for working full time as an editor.

STEVE HANDS, Junior Editor (steevh@hotmail.com)

Hands down, Steve is the most cosmopolitan of our dude-sextet. He has travelled extensively while avoiding the law and is the former publisher of Lizard magazine (Thailand). As you can see, Steve’s love of reptiles has strongly influenced his writing. He does most of his composing in a well-stocked terrarium, cavorting with the other cold-bloods. He currently lives in Britain which is why it’s Great!

WELCOME!

WELCOME ISSUE 7 SEPTEMBER 2020

‘Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.’ Susan Sontag

I gotta be meme. Nick North

Welcome to Fleas on the Dog! We’re a no frills brown bag online lit rag with only one focus: GOOD WRITING. Our style is ‘HOTS!’—hands off the submissions! We publish every submission exactly as received, so there might be arbitrary spacing, pagination and files containing more than one font. What you won’t find are pretty pictures and fancy layouts. We like this ‘broadsheet’ deconstructionist approach—the printed page as its own aesthetic—inspired by the ‘Beat’ presses and journals because it visually footprints the individual in a way a uniform format does not. We hope you like it too. (In some cases with poetry, Hezekiah’s intro will be found at the bottom, not the top of the page.)

The artistic voices, those of heart, mind and spirit, must never capitulate in the face of tyranny. Art is the instrument of conscience, the fellow of truth. Out of the mouth of the beast rises Sappho’s song. Opening the spaces of mind, nourishing the body of compassion, only happen when we write about what matters and what needs to be written. To do this literature (and that includes CNF) must have the power to offend. If the dissenting voice is silenced the sediment in the bottle is artifice not art, materialism minus the atom, spirit minus the ghost. It is up to us to eschew the damnations of political correctness and its idiotic spin off, cultural appropriation. The right to question, the right to disagree, the right to risk is our call to arms. And for those of our fellow writers who can no longer protest without personal consequence—the torch has been passed: we must do it for them! This is what writing is all about. What real writing is all about. Writing is hard. Good writing is even harder.

Yeah, but she’s a woman we all grumbled. What’s going to happen to our Dude cave? We’ll have to put in another washroom! We don’t use the washroom, remember? We use the kitty litter box like any disrespecting flea-bitten mongrel. Well, pondered Tom, it looks like the female of the species is out there. I guess it was God’s plan to create two genders after all. I mean, you gotta admit the parts fit. Sure, if you’re straight! Who said that? Besides, we don’t believe in god, remember? Sorry, guys, I think she’s here to stay. Knock, knock! Who’s there? JANET COLSON, Drama Editor. Who??? Let me fucken in! Um…Charles, get the door. I’m not getting the door. Rob, you get the door…Rob? Oh, Rob…? Where’s Richard? Richard, get the door! I can’t. I’m on the kitty litter! WTF. Tom, you get the door. Okay, on THREE! One , two, THREE! WELCOME! (Later) Hey, this is a pretty impressive CV, Janet! And why not? A woman can do anything a man can do! (From the litter box) Oh yeah? Try holding up a hat with no hands! And I can do that, too! HUUUUUHHH????

Starting with this issue we are going to publish every 4 (that’s FOUR) months instead of every 3 (trois, tre, drei). And we are limiting the number of published submissions to 100 max. Believe it or not, we all have lives outside of insects and canines.

A word about email. Questions like, “are you just one guy posing as six?” or “how come the email’s from Charles when it’s sent from Tom’s url?” So, let us explain, once and for all. When FOTD was whelped, we each had a site email. tom@fleasonthedog.com, richard@fleasonthedog.com... Etc. But soon there were messages for Charles that really should have gone to Rob and Steve in the UK was getting crap meant for Richard. So it was decided (decreed?) that the solution was to have ONE email editors@fleasonthedog.com that comes from Tom’s address. The message the email contains is from the editor who signs it. Period. Done. Oh, and yeah, we are separate people, (just check our STD files) and that’s why we included our personal email links. Capite?!

We’re just six crazy dudes and one cool fox who love the language and fall on our knees at the sound of beautiful words in all their glorious reach and transformative power. At FOTD we share that with each submission we publish, each different from the other, some miles and styles apart, but always burning. Nisi optimum et clarissimum.

And now we give you Issue 7. Full of sound and fury, signifying talent that will keep you reading today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And until we meet again in Issue 8, always spread the LOVE and STAY SAFE, or, as we say here in wonderful Canada, the true north strong and Flea, “Stay safe, eh!”

Tom, Charles, Hezekiah, Janet, Richard, Rob and Steve

About Us

Fleas on the Dog

We are a collective of writers/editors who publish a non profit online magazine for those who are on the avant garde and outside the box.

WHAT WE LIKE

Fiction: We take pretty much everything. Mainstream, traditional, literary, barbaric yawps, flash, metafiction, experimental, sci/fi, speculative, fantasy, mystery, micro, nano, grunge, bad (but it better be good!), modernist, post-modernist, spamlit, kitschlit, retro, metro, outsider, novel excerpts, graphic stories, even comics. Our only criterion is quality.

Poetry: Up to ten poems any style.

Plays: Any style up to five acts. Screenplays: any subject, any length.

Nonfiction: Kick ass op-eds, essays and articles on topical topics that are sure to p*** somebody off, memoirs, manifestos, reviews, games, nonsense and other cogent junk. Politically incorrect is welcome as long as it doesn’t devolve into invective.

WHO YOU ARE

Anybody whose engines burn when they write. You can have won literary awards or never published at all. Degrees don’t impress us—it’s your work that matters.

SUBMISSIONS

ONLINE PUBLISHING GUIDELINES

There is no submission fee. There is no remuneration for work we publish, either, but what the heck, you're going to be famous! We'll get back to you in about 30 days, hopefully sooner. (Why should it take months?)

Fiction/Nonfiction: Up to 5000 words. Length is less important than quality. For works longer than 5000 words query the editors about possible serialization.

Submissions should be on a Microsoft Word doc or docx file. Use a sensible font. Double space format. Stuff like grammar and sentence structure is important unless your work deliberately exploits bad grammar and lack of structure. (We can tell the difference.) Include a brief bio with your submission and publishing credits, if any. Send your submission as an e-mail attachment to editors@fleasonthedog.com (or type in the link in the email address).

Include the genre (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or play) and title of your work in the subject bar. Simultaneous submissions are okay, just let us know when your work is accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions are not okay unless solicited. Submit to only one category per issue. If you have been published by us please do not resubmit for six months unless solicited. We retain the first rights of your work for a period of three months. After this time rights revert back to the author. If you should republish the story/article please acknowledge that it was first published by www.fleasonthedog.com

Welcome to "fleas on the dog" an online publishing company.

Welcome to "fleas on the dog" an online publishing company.

Our editors

Fleas on the Dog

WELCOME!

Issue 7 Fiction

Issue 7 Poetry

fleas on the dog

Issue 7 Plays and Screenplays

Nonfiction Issue 7

Fleas on the Dog Archives Complete Issues One to Six

About Us

Fleas on the Dog

SUBMISSIONS

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