What We Want, Writers....

Although STNY remains closed to unsolicited submissions, we do consider work by authors personally recommended by our writer pals and editors. The personally is important because it means we trust the source (whom we implore to aim high).

Big drag, we know, but thus tis.

We select manuscripts and authors for originality, excellence, and the strength to engage the present publishing establishment.

We want writers to appreciate today's book landscape against the busy media background. We want

• Quick pacing
• Vivid images
• Bold storytelling

As to content, here are random present interests

• Malice, whether in murder or menace, in realistic urban or rural settings
• Complex villains with credible psychologies
• Poverty represented as a matter-of-fact background character in a story not about poverty
• Unsentimental characters who are not self-pitying
• Realistic stories that go deep into a character's day-to-day life inside non-European countries
• Non-fiction that posits a worldwide story

Our advice: do not pull your punches, these are not subtle times.