Mission Statement
What do you have to do to facilitate your writing? Work terrible jobs. Endure depleted bank accounts. Get tangled in favors with a million strings attached. Take care of family. Sign up for writing-but-not-quite-writing work.
MOONLIGHTING by Lit Pub aims to shine a light on writers who have—or have had—to wear many different hats to support their art. We are interested in bringing the “behind the scenes” of a writer’s life to the surface by making space for the ways writers keep themselves afloat. We want to bring awareness to frustrations that range from the funny to the furious, as well as the successes we experience as writers.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
MOONLIGHTING accepts work through Submittable on a rolling basis in three genres: fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Your submission does not have to include content about your working life or “moonlighting jobs.” Standard font for prose submissions is Times New Roman, 12 pt., with 1-inch margins, double-spaced.
We are open to any and all writing with the exception of pieces promulgating racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ+, or ableist content.
Creative Nonfiction: Send us your memoir, personal essay, lyric, hermit crab, flash, braided—any writing that is true. We’re not a place for journalism, academic writing, or craft essays. We prioritize storytelling. Ideal submissions will be 500-3,000 words, although we will consider work outside this parameter.
Fiction: Looking for fiction preferably between 250 and 3,000 words but will not shy away from a 6,000-word standout. Do you have writing that is meaningful? Compelling? Thrilling? Funny? Experimental? Then send it.
Poetry: Submit up to 5 pages of poetry. When starting a new poem, please begin on a new page. If your work has special format requirements, make sure to submit a PDF. In general, PDFs are great practice for poems and are highly encouraged. Standard font is Times New Roman, 12 pt. We do not shy away from poems that play with form, however please note that we may need to upload your poem as an image to maintain its shape.
DON’T FORGET YOUR BIOS!
All submissions must include a Moonlight bio in the cover letter. All acceptances will be published on our website along with your MOONLIGHT bio, and optional SPOTLIGHT bio.
Moonlight Bio: We want to know what you are doing or have done to make your writing life possible. In a traditional bio, you might include awards and publications. In a Moonlighting Bio, we want to flip this practice. What is not in your traditional bio? The Moonlighting Bio is your chance to share the unflattering, frustrating, or amusing ways you’re able to support your art. Examples could include freelance gigs, teaching jobs, raising a family, working in the service industry. Moonlighting Bio samples can be found below and at our “Moonlighting Bio” tab.
Spotlight Bio (optional, but encouraged): This is the traditional bio where you can list your publications, websites, and social media.
THE EDITORS’ BIOS
Bobby Crace
Fiction Editor
Moonlight Bio: Bobby Crace is a bartender whose soul is receding faster than his hairline after bartending all over NYC for fifteen years.
Spotlight Bio: Bobby Crace teaches at Stony Brook University and ghostwrites for Kevin Anderson & Associates. His own work has been published by Routledge, The Southampton Review, The Under Review, Mayday and other journals.
Carina Kohn
Poetry Editor
Moonlight Bio: Carina Kohn was living on her bat-mitzvah money (it ran out), and is perpetually losing or quitting jobs because she keeps asking for non-exploitative pay. She may also be the person delivering your coffee fix through Doordash. Say hi!
Spotlight Bio: Carina Kohn is a multi-genre queer, Jewish writer, editor, and educator from New York. She received an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University and a BA in English at SUNY New Paltz. She has been published in Ponder Review, The Brooklyn Rail, and Chronogram. She is a top prize recipient for 2022's Money for Women in Fiction: Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and most recently was an Artist-In-Residence at the Watermill Center.
Amy Scheiner
Creative Nonfiction Editor
Moonlight Bio: Amy Scheiner currently works four jobs as an administrative assistant, teacher, and tutor to pay for those submission fees. She has also recently discovered her great-grandfather's stamp collection and hopes to sell them to make a dent in her student loans.
Spotlight Bio: Amy Scheiner's writing has been featured in Slate, HuffPost, and Longreads, among others. She is currently seeking representation for her memoir. www.amyscheiner.com.
MOONLIGHTING FAQ
What is moonlighting?
The work you do outside of your writing. Writers get to define what moonlighting means to them.
What do you accept?
We publish fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Please see Submission Guidelines for more detail.
When do you publish?
Whenever we have time between gigs (on a rolling basis).
Do I have to pay to submit?
No!
Do you pay?
At this time, we cannot offer payment to writers as we ourselves are volunteers.
What is a Moonlight Bio?
A bio describing whatever you do to support yourself and others financially, physically, or emotionally. Examples can be found under the Moonlighting Bios page.
What is a Spotlight Bio?
We’d like to shine a light on your working life and your art life. Therefore, we encourage you to also include a traditional writer’s bio along with any social media links you would like to share so that readers can find your work.
How can I submit?
You can submit HERE!
How can I reach you if I have a question?
moonlightingbylitpub@gmail.com
Policies
Moonlighting Pub Rights:
Rights revert to the author upon publication. We do ask that authors credit Moonlighting by Lit Pub with first publication if the work is republished elsewhere. We ask for non-exclusive rights indefinitely for future anthologies, special projects, and digital archiving.
A.I. Policy:
We do not oppose creative uses of A.I. generated writing, but we do expect you to disclose which portions of your submission have been auto-generated. Disclosing the use of A.I. does not exclude your submission for consideration. We reserve the right to rescind acceptances from any work that doesn’t disclose AI-generated content.
Removal Policy:
We reserve the right to rescind work by authors that disseminate racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ+, or ableist content.
MOONLIGHTING (Re)Launch Statement
In June 2023, Amy Scheiner, Carina Kohn, and Bobby Crace took the keys from founder and publisher Molly Gaudry to relaunch MOONLIGHTING by Lit Pub. Originally established in 2011, Lit Pub was committed to “finding good homes for good books.”
MOONLIGHTING wants to continue in Lit Pub tradition while adding an updated focus around the challenges writers face while trying to write. It began when the three writers, Amy, Carina, and Bobby, got together to kvetch about “paying their writing dues,” and from that conversation, discovered the foundation of MOONLIGHTING’s central theme: Compelling writing submissions that include Moonlighting Bios. What are you doing or have done to make your writing life possible? In a traditional bio, you might include awards and publications, but in a Moonlight Bio, we want to flip this practice. What is not in your traditional bio? The Moonlighting Bio is your chance to share the unflattering, frustrating, or amusing ways that you support your art. Examples could include freelance gigs, teaching jobs, raising a family, working in the service industry, and beyond. The writer defines what moonlighting means to them.
Please see Mission Statement and Submission Guidelines above for more information about MOONLIGHTING by Lit Pub.
Sincerely,
Amy Scheiner, Carina Kohn, and Bobby Crace
WHAT ABOUT THE OLD LIT PUB?
Does MOONLIGHTING publish book reviews like Lit Pub used to?
Not at this time, but we may return to publishing book reviews in the future.
Is Lit Pub Still Publishing Books?
Lit Pub is not currently considering a return to publishing books. In the future, if Lit Pub does reopen to book submissions, we would be interested in debut publications—first books by writers of hybrid and experimental prose collections. If Lit Pub decides to pursue this interest, submissions would be free.
What about Online Book Reviews and Author Interviews?
Upon launching in 2011, Lit Pub featured heartfelt book recommendations and in-depth author interviews here on this website. At this time, however, submissions for book recommendations and author interviews are closed. As for new content, Lit Pub is now publishing under the guidelines of new editors as MOONLIGHTING. See above for the editors’ mission and submission guidelines.
LIT PUB HISTORY
Committed to “finding good homes for good books”
LIT PUB LAUNCHED IN JUNE OF 2011
Over the years, Lit Pub released chapbooks—Aimee Bender’s The Third Elevator (2012), Caitlin Horrocks’s 23 Months (2012), and Miles Harvey’s The Drought (2012)—as well as the following full-length debuts:
Kathy Fish’s flash fiction collection, Together We Can Bury It (2012)
Liz Scheid’s lyric essay collection, The Shape of Blue (2013)
Lena Bertone’s epistolary novella, Letters to the Devil (2014)
Justin Armstrong’s ethereal time-travel novel, Wyomings (2018)