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Necklaces of jasmine-flowered words  cling to the throats of whimsical tourists before blending with the bustle of Bangkok  like clownfish among coral in a tumultuous sea. Some are as red as chilies whose ancestors ripened  on Brazilian hills  and dried below the decks of Portuguese ships. Others are as white as coconut milk or Cape Gardenia flowers. And still others—blue as the Chiang-Mai sky in the middle of May. Sometimes they are swallowed with pennywort juice  by the baskets of lotus roots, tamarind plums, and tassel flowers at the Pak Khlong Market;   muttered playfully at the caged puppies at Chatuchak Park;   grumbled across King Rama’s Memorial Bridge;  shouted from the decks of taxi boats  up and down the Chao Phraya River; whispered in every bar along the Patpong Road;  bounced above the tuk-tuk seats as they glide around the Democracy Monument; strung together to form cognac-flavored wishes;  drowned and resurrected by the same bottle of Mekong. And in the early hours   they come to roost like the leaden darkness  upon the roofs of the spirit houses. Frank William Finney is a poet from Massachusetts who taught literature in Thailand for 25  years.. His work can be found in BarBar, Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, Hearth and Coffin Literary Journal, 7th-Circle Pyrite , and Tales of the Strange (anthology) with work  forthcoming in Blue Unicorn . He is a Letter Review Prize for Poetry winner, and the author of The Folding of the Wings (FLP Books, 2022) and other collections.

October 15, 2043 I’ve been accepted! By train and boat we journey to join the other initiates. We’re allowed three final phone calls – “chatter away to your heart’s content!” the email instructed. I called my mother and father first, but found I had little to say, and mostly listened. They cried of course, and pleaded with me to speak, so I described the fog-licked moors and tannin-soaked peatlands, the jaunty heather and juniper. “Speak normal Cormack,” they said, “stop banging on like a pious knob. Just speak normal before we forget what ya sound like.” But I find it impossible to speak the same way, now I’m aware of how many words I have left. My sister is furious with me, but she answered when I called her separately. “It’s not your fault they made the choice they did, Corm,” she said angrily. “A choice isn’t right,” I said back, “that’s not quite the right word.” I decided not to use my third phone call.  November 7, 2043 Apologies. I haven’t written for weeks. Well, except for the violent waterfall of consciousness we pour into our lab books, exorcising the cathartic and the mundane, to be burned in the evening fires. Ash settling into earth; our thoughts soaked up by layers of soil. This journal they don’t know about. My bunkmate, Yongyi, has one too, and we have a silent pact (haha) not to tell.  November 22, 2043 Most initiates fail to join the Inner Canal. They fail one of the Four Tests that Yongyi and I JUST PASSED: The Comic (We did not laugh) The Tragedist (We did not weep)  The Unjust (We did not gasp, or rage) The Romantic (We did not fall, but we Love) November 25, 2043 No one can tell us how bad it hurts, obviously. Yongyi and I have ours this afternoon. We stayed up all night by pilfered candlelight, sticking our tongues out and wagging them around – slimy, red slugs. We sang in bold whispers and flailed around the room, we told all the childhood stories we knew, we talked shite and nonsense and tongue twisters, we told each other our secrets because we won’t be able to speak them after today, and he told me he didn’t blame me for stealing Maxwell’s girlfriend in biology class, it wasn’t my fault he made the choice he did, plus my presentation on regenerating coral reefs was epic and objectively hot, and there were clearly bigger issues he was dealing with. Then I didn’t want to talk much anymore, but Yongyi made me sing a song about a turtle who was born without a shell and thinks he’s a person, and we laughed so hard, and neither of us slept a blink because to be honest we were scared shitless.  February, 2044 I know it’s been months. You must be wondering how it went. I’ve got the hang of swallowing again, though I went through a phase of swallowing non-stop until my throat swelled up. We eat endless potatoes (I can still taste variations in earthiness and sweetness in my soft palate and mouth), dry biscuits with gravy, seaweed, the occasional bit of mutton (finely chopped). Yongyi and I have fully graduated and when we’re not Listening, we walk through the old castle grounds and pretend to be crows convening and scheming amongst the stone circles, our robes billowing behind us—burnt amber wings. When one of us lies on the mist-whetted ground with our legs and arms toward the sky, teeth gnashing, this means we had a day of HARD Listening. We are supposed to visit the caves and purify our bodies and minds, to cleanse ourselves of everything we hear and absorb into our nervous system and spirits, which we will do, but first we come here and gnash gnash gnash.  February still (I think), 2044 People tell us everything. They confess their crimes, the horrors they live with, their desires and their shame, their unbearable fears, they confess the grotesqueness and beauty of their psyches, they confess how much they love, and how they fear failing the ones they love. We are trained to bear true witness, and in doing so become a conduit down to the molten earth and up into infinite galaxies, creating space for pain and suffering to be transmuted into unbounded possibilities. Some Listeners fail because they cannot handle their own silence—when a person vows to suicide, we do not argue with them or convince them or persuade them or threaten them or comfort them. We do not know if our Listening will amount to a life extinguished or a life lived. I take comfort in knowing what it was like twenty years ago: So you call the number right, you worked up the guts, because it’s embarrassing to ask a stranger for this kind of help, the soul kind. And you get this automated voice, wait twenty to an hour, probably longer. Finally, some sleep-deprived, unpaid social work student who needs it for their CV answers – you hold back a volcano, but the words bubble out. And then, the checklist. How suicidal are you: a standardized questionnaire design.  Choose from two options: 1 - Not enough: Well, if you don’t have a means or a date set, you’re probably just attention seeking. A few minutes of platitudes, some subtle shaming about how terrible it would be for your family, call back if you’re actually suicidal.  2 - Too suicidal: Now you’re a legal liability. The cops are called and you’re carted off to a facility where they lock you up against your will and force meds down your throat and they don’t provide therapy, only more suicide checklists, and you’re forced to lie and say you’re fine because you must escape that hellscape.  I remind myself of this, and other reasons, when the not knowing is difficult.  April? May? The crocus are blooming. 2044 There is a kind of sickness moving through the Listeners. We have been informed to increase our grounding (stomping bare feet into mud) and purification (the caves) exercises. Some Listeners appear to be… psychically disintegrating. I wonder… yesterday I was Listening for a man who felt his existence was pointless, he only repeated life (his children who do not respect him) but he has not created anything of meaning, and also he feels his only worth is his paycheque, and nothing was particularly unique about the call, except my body evaporated, I mean completely disintegrated into the atmosphere, and I was tethered to this reality only by his words, and I nearly cried out. Imagine! They would have put me on bed rest.  Whenever the fuck it is.  People are whingebags. I’ve heard enough of their mundane, shitty problems. GET A GRIP. If I Listen for one more second, I will kill myself. And who will Listen to me???  Probably June, 2044 I decided not to cross out the last entry. It is all part of this exhilarating discipline. Today I feel such love for all life-forms. Such an impossible, brutal yet resplendent ecosystem we exist in! The complexity is unending, without edges or point of origin. I love. I LOVE!  TIME IS A CONSTRUCT Are we not God? They speak to us, into the abyss. And we listen, silently, and they trust that we listen.  Probably still June or maybe July, 2044 Got a tad grandiose there, sorry. But it’s difficult sometimes, all this silence. Yongyi and I have learned a type of morse code, through blinking. If someone finds this journal, please keep this knowledge to yourself. Or come find us in the stone circles, and we can teach you! But only if you’re cool.   I was actually warm today. August? 2044 I haven’t experienced the disintegration again. They’ve been giving us longer breaks, more time spent with the chickens and the sheep, even games to play like mancala and crokinole. Yesterday a young woman called—you can tell age through the texture of the voice. She didn’t want me to change her mind. She wanted a witness for the end, a kind of confessional. And that I gave her. Sometimes people yell and scream and flirt (the smuttiest things! It’s hard not to respond, I admit) and plead with their Listeners to make a sound, even a mumbled yes or no. But this girl sounded exhausted mostly. I think she was relieved by the full silence. I want to specify that it is a full silence we give. There is nothing empty about it. We never let anyone feel alone, like they did before, even with all their advising and diagnosing and chastising.  August, 2044 I can’t find Yongyi. There is a search party tonight. I’m worried, but I can’t stop thinking about that girl, either. I’m certain she’s dead, but maybe my Listening helped her. Maybe she hung on to this material plane. Sometimes I think I possess the power to traverse the expanse of space and time. I will find Yongyi, and I will find that girl, and I will bring back my friends. But this is attachment, which is BAD apparently. I don’t know. I like attachments. If we’re not attached, we might float away.  Later in August, 2044  Yongyi is still missing. He is my best living friend. There was a spontaneous laugh attack in the Listening Hall today. I giggled too. No, I roared with laughter!!!! Which is probably not so great, because the person I was Listening for just lost her husband to cancer. But then… she shrieked with laughter too! People are disintegrating and reintegrating, and even the Master Listeners are all a jumble. I miss being a crow with Yongyi. Sometimes he would peck my arm really hard and draw blood.  Later today, 2044 Just so you don’t think he’s a wanker, he also nuzzled into my neck and blew air on my ears and made crow noises (which is not allowed, but he does it anyway, which is one of the things I love about him. Another thing is that he saves me extra biscuits). October 15, 2044 (the other initiates are joining today)  Yongyi has been missing for two months. When people glance at Yongyi’s empty seat, I’m sure they think of the sea and its unforgiving rocks. Maybe I’ve got everything backwards. Maybe he was close to the edge all along.   His seat will be replaced this afternoon by a new initiate. I buried a tack into the chair’s fabric so they can’t see the shining metal tip.  March 3, 2045 Daily rhythms have settled down again in the Inner Canal. The Masters have added group expression sessions so we don’t bottle things up and erupt in laughter or tears while Listening. We’re allotted ten minutes a day to scream and make any noise we wish. We continue to Listen. I don’t want to talk about it here, but Listeners have been reporting a repeat caller who doesn’t speak but makes garbled sounds. A dam’s cracked open; blood surges through my veins again.  Listeners don’t police calls like they did in the past, but this morning they taught us how to track calls. Training Listeners is an expensive investment and we signed contracts to stay here. They punish those who shirk their duties, but losing a finger or two isn’t so bad after what we’ve been through.  March 7, 2045  Yongyi knew it was me by the weight and shimmer of my silence. He made our cawing noises and I had to bite my lips to keep from cawing back.    My friend Maxwell, he used to have a pet crow. The crow had fallen from its family nest, and Maxwell made him a bed out of socks and put him in a cage for safekeeping. The crow would nuzzle our fingers and play with us, but his eyes became harder over the years, little accusing shards.  Yongyi doesn’t know about the track command though. When he comes back, he’ll see that things are better. I’ll keep a watchful eye on him. We will leap atop the standing stones, crouching like bullfrogs. Croaking doesn’t need consonants like cawing does, so we can bound through sea haar making all the noises we want, and we will sound perfect. Robyn Thomas is a Canadian writer and filmmaker currently living in Scotland where she’s completing her PhD in anthropology and discovering her love of haggis. Her writing has been published in Orca Literary Journal, Hunger Mountain Review, Marrow Magazine, Carmina Magazine, Psyche Magazine and other publications.

There’s a clearing in the center of the Salt Towers where the red ash settles. The pointed remains of stalagmites, exposed to the sky after the caves split and collapsed a thousand years ago, shield it from the whipping winds of the coast. Instead of scattering and sticking to the heavy clouds above, the ash from neighboring Mount Timothy blankets crumbling terrain that howls with the violence of windstorms that seem to worsen each year. Meryl likes to carve the rocks on the cliffside that overlooks it.  She figures a few thousand more years will wear away anything she cuts into the soft slate slabs dotting the clearing anyway. They jut out at odd angles, forced to the surface by the fault line that curves along the coast, dark against the stark white of the Salt Towers. Hardly anyone comes out this way. There is something freeing about carving in a place no one will ever see. Meryl places her makeshift chisel over the slab she’s been working on for a few months now. She’s trying to carve a jackal’s face into its eastward corner, but she can’t quite get the head shape right. It’s always just a little off if she looks at it a certain way. She’s moved on to other projects a handful of times since starting it, but never been able to let it go unfinished. Her contemplation is interrupted by a familiar voice. “The jackal again?” Meryl huffs, dropping her arms in her lap. The chisel leaves fresh dust on her pants. “I’ll never let it go,” she mutters. She glances up at Wire, who is grinning at her with his usual cheekiness.  Wire is the only other person who knows about Meryl’s secret hiding place. She held her chisel out like a weapon the first time he came out of hiding, startling her from the meditative state she falls into while she carves. He’d held up his hands and insisted he was just curious about where she went in the afternoon. They’d hardly known each other then, only acquaintances through their shared classroom at the time.  “Maybe you could turn it into a wolf? Jackals are weird animals anyway,” Wire says, a departure from his usual snark. “Their ears look funny.” “I know,” she says. “I don’t know why I picked it.” That’s a lie. She knows exactly why she picked it, and so does Wire; it’s an homage to the little statue that sits on the mantle of her family’s fireplace, carved from wood and polished with a shiny lacquer. Its head is turned so that it looks outward, watching over the house like a tiny guardian. Her grandmother’s ashes rest inside it, but she usually forgets about that part.  Thankfully, Wire doesn’t comment on it. “You going to the Steel Festival?” he asks. He leans against the slate slab, crossing his arms.  Meryl snorts. “The Steel Festival is a waste of time,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Who cares about a little parade around the square?” The Steel Festival is a sham anyway. The only reason they do it is because their town became famous for The Stealing. They’d changed the name to “Steel,” some strange form of reclamation through a misunderstanding from outsiders. She likes looking at the floats, at least.  “Lots of people, I assume,” Wire says with a shrug. “There’ll be fried cakes there though. I know you love those.”  She does  love those.  Meryl sighs. “Will you come with me at least?” she asks.  “Yeah, for sure. In fact, I’ll do you one better and buy the cakes.” Wire pulls out his wallet to count his money, just to be sure he has enough. He’s one of the only people Meryl knows who still carries coins. Transferring credits is much easier.  A silence settles between them. Meryl considers her next point of attack on her carving, and the wind whips the ash in the center of the Salt Towers into an unstable cyclone. Red ash splits and breaks at the top of it in ribbons, as though the cone of wind becomes too fatigued to hold its shape and unravels. Meryl holds her chisel up to the jackal, her hammer just behind it, pauses for ten full seconds, then gives up.  “How long until the parade?” she asks.  “Not long. We’d be fashionably late if we left now,” Wire says.  Meryl stands. “Let’s be fashionably late then,” she concedes, and Wire smiles at her, pushing off from her canvas with his shoulder and heading for the town square. They crawl through brambles and winding paths interrupted by roots and errant stones to get there. Meryl wouldn’t feel safe hiding back there if it wasn’t hard to get to, after all. It was part of why Wire’s following initially impressed her.  They reach the edge of town and break from the bushes, just beside one of the Wandering fountains. The statue of a man at the center spouts water from his extended pointer finger. There are six identical statues scattered across town, and only one fountain is active at a time, taking turns in a clockwise circle every few hours or so. It’s part of an art installation meant to represent the Stealing; it represents the theory that the Stolen are merely transported, not dead, or something like that. Tourists seem to like its concept. The parade follows the circular path they make around the town’s heart. Meryl and Wire hop into the crowd snaking around the street to watch the parade. She can see the tops of the floats from here, wild dragons and insects and a gigantic tree shaped from sheets of steel peeking out above the heads of strangers. Traditional puppets made of furs and cloth weave in and out of curving metal, held up on sticks by performers in all-black. If she doesn’t think too hard, she’s not bothered by the dissonance involved in joyfully parading through town on a day half the population vanished a few hundred years ago. She even enjoys the artwork. The crowd cheers as pyrotechnics shoot from the maw of a huge steel lion, its eyes glowing a menacing red. The people on the float wave and cheer, throwing cheap beads into the crowd. Meryl thinks she heard once that humans did this on Earth for decades. Sometimes, it’s the fun things that endure through space and time. Wire points at the next float—a depiction of an angel, its many wings curled effortlessly around a dark and foreboding pillar. Metalworking is so fascinating. She can’t imagine a craft where you can’t chisel something off if you don’t like it.  “James!” a harsh voice snaps. Wire freezes. It takes a moment for Meryl to remember that’s his real name, so used to calling him by the nickname he acquired after a mishap in shop class years ago. He turns casually toward his mother, who has managed to find him. “Hey, Mom,” he says, playing off his apparent disobedience.  “Your sisters looked for you everywhere this morning!” she says, her brow furrowed as she yells over the noise of the crowd. “You know they still like to come to things like this,” she adds. The ‘with you’ is implied. They’re ten and twelve years old, at the cusp of thinking it’s uncool to hang out with their brother, and Wire’s mom never lets him forget it. “I know,” Wire says sheepishly.  “You apologize to them when this is over. Hello, Meryl,” she says, finally acknowledging her standing next to him as an afterthought. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Jaycroft,” Meryl says. It’s always a little embarrassing to watch your friend get scolded by their parents. She tunes out the argument between Wire and his mom, instead focusing on the parade as it passes slowly by them. A majestic peacock puppet comes into view next, its technicolor feathers swaying in the breeze. As the last few floats start to turn the corner, an odd sound starts to come from behind her. In her peripheral vision, she watches Wire turn to it at the same time she does. It’s a yawning sound, low and unnatural, like the echoing toll of a giant bell, and it’s getting louder. “Do you hear that?” she asks Wire.  “Yeah,” he says, tilting his head to try to find the source of the noise. A handful of the other people around them turn to look too, pulled away from the excitement of the parade.  “What? Hear what?”  They both ignore Wire’s mother. Wire steps toward the bushes behind them and Meryl follows, her curiosity dragging her forward. The sound pulses once in a while like a heartbeat, causing palpitations in her own chest.  “It’s coming from the coast,” Wire says, pointing forward. “By the Salt Towers.” That’s all Meryl needs to hear before she takes off running into the woods. “Wait!” Wire cries, reaching for her hand, but he’s too slow. He keeps a few paces behind her as they crash through weeds and bushes. “Mer, it might be dangerous!”  She doesn’t listen to him. She can’t. All she can hear is the horrible droning noise, overpowering everything else. The closer they get, the louder it is, until it’s vibrating in her bones and ripping apart her ears. Then they reach the clearing, and out in the middle of the Salt Towers below, her jackal’s snout pointing directly at its pulsing heart, they find— Nothing.  The sound crescendos, and even with her hands over her ears, it leaks into her skull like a concussive migraine. She thinks she’s yelling, but she can’t hear it. Meryl falls to her knees, drops her forehead to the dirt, and just when she thinks her eardrums might burst, it stops.  She keeps her head to the ground for a few seconds still, her eyes scrunched closed, before she slowly removes her hands from her ears and rises from the ground. There’s blood on her palms where they covered her ears, and everything is muffled like she’s underwater. She turns, and Wire is speaking to her, but she can’t understand him. “What?” she asks, barely recognizing her own voice.  He looks terrified, and there’s blood smeared on his cheek too, dyeing the warm brown of his skin maroon. Her hearing is slowly returning, the sound of the wind and the waves crashing on the coast soothing the tears in her ears. “Meryl, we gotta go back,” Wire says, desperation and fear in his voice. She stands on shaky legs, reaching for his hand to help him up. They then stumble, much slower this time, back to town. Meryl fears the return of the noise, but it’s gone, a phantom echoing still in her ears with each clumsy step. They finally reach the edge of the woods, breaking the branches as they fall into the clearing at the town’s edge. The floats are empty.  They idle in place, engines sputtering while they wait for direction, but no one is there to drive them. There is only an empty street, covered in beads and candy and confetti. Puppets lie abandoned in the dirt.  Meryl and Wire glance at each other, then start walking blindly forward. They search for someone else, anyone else. Finally, they spot someone; a man, sitting on the edge of the Wandering fountain. The water is turned off. They jog toward him. His head is in his hands, and telltale blood is drying in a stream from his ear down to his neck. “Hey,” Wire says quietly. The man flinches, looking up from his hands with a haunted look in his eyes. “Sorry, it’s just—where is everyone?” The man stares, like he’s forgotten how to speak. Then he looks up at the fountain, avoiding their gazes. “Gone,” he says, his voice hoarse.  Meryl’s blood runs cold. “Gone..?” “They just…left,” he says. Then he adds, with a new crazed look in his eyes, “Did you hear it? The sound?”  She scans the street again. Beneath the parade’s detritus are dark footprints, seared into the cobblestone. There were people standing there, all around them. It’s as though they floated straight into the sky. Meryl knows what this is, all at once.  “The Stealing,” she gasps, her breath stopped and throat constricting. “It’s back.” She stares at the face of the statue, the Wandering Man, waiting his turn again for the water to turn on. His finger points to the sky, where the water will spout, and she follows it up, and up, and up. V.T. Mikolajczyk is a writer based in Rochester, NY. Though her AAS is in Biotechnology, she recently graduated from SUNY Brockport with a BS in Creative Writing. She has a special interest in writing speculative fiction. She intends to pursue an MFA in the future.

Submissions What We're Looking For 7th-Circle Pyrite accepts poetry, short fiction, essays, and visual art whose content explores spirituality, the arcane and macabre, horror, paranormality, magic, religion, occultism, or whose style embraces dark and/or gothic imagery. These themes include — but are not limited to — the following: ​ Religious/spiritual beliefs and practices Death and the afterlife Astrology, tarot, and magic Paranormal or extraterrestrial experiences Mythology, folklore, and urban legends Demonology, spirits, and the supernatural Cultural tales and traditions Dreams, signs, and omens ​ Write about your relationship with God. Write about that haunted, dilapidated house you and your friends visited as kids. Write about your astrological insights. Write about your thoughts on death, Heaven, and Hell. Write about that one unexplainable event that happened to you that no one seems to believe. If you can travel beyond the material and mundane, we want to hear from you! Submission Guidelines Please review the guidelines below that correspond to the type of submission you're looking to present. Additionally, please take a few quick moments to fully review the FAQ that follows. [Note that you must be 18 or older to submit work.] Submit 1-3 original poems for publication consideration. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. You do not need to notify us if your poetry is accepted elsewhere. Previously published works may be submitted. Maximum of 100 lines per poem. Submit your poems as an email attachment to 7thcirclepyrite@gmail.com as a PDF (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) file. Include the following in your attachment: Your full name (exactly as you would like it to appear on the site)​ A brief author biography (150 words or fewer) written in the third person An author picture; can be a selfie or professional headshot, but must include your face and modest attire One poem per page A title for each poem Use the subject line " 7th-Circle Pyrite Submission: Poetry " for your email.​ Essays Submit 1-2 original essays for publication consideration. NOTE: "Essay," as used by 7th-Circle Pyrite , refers to informative and/or argumentative pieces, as well as creative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction pieces may detail experiences and information that is autobiographical. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. You do not need to notify us if your essay is accepted elsewhere. Previously published work may be submitted. Maximum of 2,500 words per essay. Submit essays as an email attachment to 7thcirclepyrite@gmail.com as a PDF (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) file. Include the following in your attachment: Your full name (exactly as you would like it to appear on the site)​ A brief author biography (150 words or fewer) written in the third person An author picture; can be a selfie or professional headshot, but must include your face and modest attire Essays separated by a page break A title for each essay Use the subject line " 7th-Circle Pyrite Submission: Essay " for your email.​ Submit 1-2 original pieces of short fiction (short story or flash fiction) for publication consideration. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. You do not need to notify us if your stories are accepted elsewhere. Previously published work may be submitted. Maximum of 2,500 words per story. Submit your fiction as an email attachment to 7thcirclepyrite@gmail.com as a PDF (.pdf) or Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) file. Include the following in your attachment: Your full name (exactly as you would like it to appear on the site)​ A brief author biography (150 words or fewer) written in the third person An author picture; can be a selfie or professional headshot, but must include your face and modest attire Stories separated by a page break A title for each story Use the subject line " 7th-Circle Pyrite Submission: Short Fiction " for your email.​ Artwork Submit 1-3 original pieces of visual artwork (drawings, paintings, photography, or digital art) for publication consideration. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. You do not need to notify us if your artwork has been accepted elsewhere. Previously published work may be submitted. Submit artwork as individual email attachments to 7thcirclepyrite@gmail.com as a PDF (.pdf), PNG (.png), JPG/JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), or TIFF (.tiff) file. (Each image should have its own attachment.) Include the following in the body of your email: Your full name (exactly as you would like it to appear on the site)​ A brief author biography (150 words or fewer) written in the third person An author picture; can be a selfie or professional headshot, but must include your face and modest attire ​​ The titles of each of your art pieces; these titles should also appear in the file names of your attachments A blurb to accompany each of your pieces that explains the theme it represents; each blurb should be 200-500 words. Use the subject line " 7th-Circle Pyrite Submission: Artwork " for your email.​ Poetry Short Fiction Submission FAQs Q: Who is encouraged to submit work? A: Everyone! Both emerging and established writers and artists 18 and over are encouraged to submit their work for publication. Q: Is any form of payment issued to contributors whose work is accepted? A: At this time, no, there are no payments issued to contributors whose works are selected for publication. Q: What rights do I have as an author/artist if my work is accepted for publication? A: Authors and artists whose work is selected for publication remain the copyright holders of and retain full rights to their work. 7th-Circle Pyrite does not restrict authors and artists whose work is published on our site from doing as they wish with their work elsewhere. Your submission to 7th-Circle Pyrite authorizes our journal only to publish your work on our site. Q: How long does it take to hear back about the status of a submission? A: We strive to follow up on poetry and artwork submissions within 30 calendar days, and fiction and essay submissions within 45 calendar days. We ask that any inquiries into the status of a submission be sent only if you have not received an acceptance or declination email within the number of days relevant to your submission type. Q: How much work can I submit at a time? A: You may submit as many pieces as are allowed in the ranges referenced in the guidelines above for each submission type, but please refrain from submitting additional pieces of that submission type until you hear back about its status. For example, you may submit two poems and three pieces of artwork at once, but we ask that you not resubmit any additional poetry or artwork until you hear back about your original submissions. Please be sure to thoroughly review any acceptance or declination letter you receive, as it may reference a time window during which a resubmission would be unreviewable. Q: Is there a fee required to submit my work? A: Submission to 7th-Circle Pyrite is free of charge. Fees are neither incurred nor collected at any time, for any reason. Q: If a submission is accepted for publication, is it edited first or published as is? A: If a piece is selected for publication but contains a small number of minor grammatical errors, the errors will be outlined in an email to the author. The author will then be given the opportunity to make the requested corrections prior to publication. Q: How often is new material published on the site? A: We publish bimonthly (every other month). Q: In what mediums is 7th-Circle Pyrite distributed? A: 7th-Circle Pyrite is an online publication only. We do not circulate or distribute print-based content at this time.

7th-Circle Pyrite A literary journal celebrating worlds beyond Issue 6: Sep. 21st 2024 "We have to do something with all this sulfur ." 7th-Circle Pyrite is a celebration of all that transcends the physical or mundane. Spirituality and religion, paranormality, magic, horror, occultism, and the macabre all have a home here. ​ The 7th Circle of Hell as represented in Dante's Inferno is reserved for those who have committed acts of violence. In the world we live in—where violence runs rampant—sometimes we may feel Hell is already here. And if that's the case, let's take the dregs of life—sulfuric as they may be—and turn them into something more beautiful. We are an inclusive publication. Diverse viewpoints are always welcome, and we do not discriminate based on race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, spiritual ideology, health, physical appearance, or any other aspect of a person's identity. ​ We publish original poetry, short fiction, essays, and artwork. You are invited to submit your work! Click here to view our submission guidelines. News & Updates Newest 05/18/24 03/16/24 01/20/24 11/18/23 10/15/23 Submissions are open! October 15, 2023 ​ 7th-Circle Pyrite is a brand-new online literary journal and anthology. We're looking for dedicated authors and artists to become early contributors to the journal, helping shape our foundation! ​ If you have reviewed our content specializations and would like to make a submission, please visit the "Submissions" page for more details. Issue 1 of 7th-Circle Pyrite has arrived! November 18, 2023 We are excited to announce the publication of the inaugural issue of 7th-Circle Pyrite ! Due to the overwhelmingly positive support of a wide range of talented contributors, we have been able to achieve this milestone for those who have been following our developments. ​ To view the content in Issue 1, click on the cover art in this announcement. ​ We are continuing to accept submissions of poetry, short fiction, essays, and visual art for upcoming issues slated for March 2024 and May 2024. Please see our submission guidelines for more details. Issue 2 of 7th-Circle Pyrite is now live! January 20, 2024 The second issue of 7th-Circle Pyrite has arrived! We are excited to begin 2024 by sharing an eclectic assortment of works created by our skilled and dedicated contributors. To view the content in Issue 2, click on the cover art in this announcement. ​ We are continuing to accept submissions of poetry, essays, and visual art for upcoming issues slated for March 2024 and May 2024. Please see our submission guidelines for more details. ​ Additionally, be sure to check out 7th-Circle Pyrite 's appearance in a recent installment of the New Lit on the Block series hosted by NewPages! Click here to view. Issue 3 of 7th-Circle Pyrite and new Gorgon card added March 16, 2024 The third issue of 7th-Circle Pyrite is now available! We want to extend our warm and sincere thanks to all of the contributors who have helped build this wonderful issue. To view the content in Issue 3, click on the cover art in this announcement. ​ Also, take a moment to check out our new Gorgon card , which represents a category of submissions that supports fantasy and adventure. A big thanks to Nyx for her artistry! ​ We are continuing to accept submissions of poetry, essays, and visual art for upcoming issues slated for May 2024 and July 2024. Short fiction submissions will reopen on April 1, 2024. Please see our submission guidelines for more details. Issue 4 of 7th-Circle Pyrite is now live! May 18, 2024 The fourth issue of 7th-Circle Pyrite is now live! April 1st marked the date our short fiction submissions reopened and also the start of National Poetry Month in the US, so the submissions we received for this issue showcased a tremendous amount of talent from writers all over the world. We thank all of those whose work appears in this issue, as well as those who have continued to support our journal with their wonderfully creative submissions. To view the content in Issue 4, click on the cover art in this announcement. ​ If you feel inclined, we also encourage you to read an editor interview with Keiraj M. Gillis, featured here on Duotrope . ​ We are continuing to accept submissions in all categories for upcoming issues slated for July 2024 and September 2024. Please see our submission guidelines for more details. Issue 5 of 7th-Circle Pyrite is available now! July 20, 2024 The fifth issue of 7th-Circle Pyrite is now available! We continue to assert that our contributors are the most important element of our operation, as without them, we would be unable to provide our readership with our favorite works from around the globe. We also are honored to be one of the first publication credits in many of our contributors' portfolio! It is a privilege to give a platform to the spirited works of writers at all stages of their respective careers. To view the content in Issue 5, click on the cover art in this announcement. ​ ​ We are continuing to accept submissions in all categories for upcoming issues slated for September 2024 and November 2024. Please see our submission guidelines for more details.

About Us 7th-Circle Pyrite aims to present a home for all that transcends the mundane. For those who choose to allow their writing and art to capture the macabre, surreal, esoteric, magical, and spiritual aspects of life, our journal hopes to be a refuge. This goal was borne by a desire to create safety and express appreciation for writers and artists whose work may be niche in the creative space. ​ We believe in the abandonment of pretension in our relationship with the creative community. That is, we believe that you as a writer or artist is what makes a journal great; your work is what makes it shine. For that reason, we encourage all who submit their work to remember that we will treat your work with respect whether it is selected for publication or not. And if it's not selected, that is not a reflection on you as a writer or artist . We want all creatives who reach out to us to remember that they deserve a voice and to remain confident in their creative pursuits.