TVBR Is Transitioning Away from A Website to the User-Friendlier Substack Platform
“The Vincent Brothers Review’s Weekly Reader” Substack issues will features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, rock ’n’ roll stories, writing advice, writing prompts, news you can use, and updates about our print issue production schedules.
Subscriptions to The Vincent Brothers Review Weekly Reader are FREE for now, but we’ll move to paywalls for much of the content once we figure out this Substack beast.
Subscribe here to stay updated on TVBR’s print and Substack issues. Again, all subscriptions are FREE at this time, but you will need to sign up with an email to get the newsletter. You can cancel at any time.
Our Substack newsletter can be found here.
The Flash Fiction/Time Capsules/Haibun/Short-Lined Poems/Dispatch Prose (i.e., Writer and/Or Their Book Tributes, Book Reviews, and Rock ’n’ Roll Albums That Changed How I Listen to Music) Submissions portal is open all year, and read on a rolling basis.
The Vincent Brothers Review is a paying market, and we typically pay $35 per Flash Fiction/Time Capsule/Haibun UPON PUBLICATION. Our modest submission fees are used to cover payment to writers and staff, as well as the production and printing costs of both our online and hard-copy issues. All rights revert to authors upon publication.
Stay Tuned: We also plan to sponsor a haibun contest in mid-summer 2024 centered around the images/ideas of full moon cycles and women’s empowerment. Watch here for details.
PLEASE NOTE: TVBR editors take their time when considering submissions selections. Our response time can take up to a year, or even longer. This is why we accept SIMULTANEOUS submissions. Our production time is also long. TVBR is not for you if you’re impatient or fast-tracking a publication career. We have a small staff of editors who all work other jobs and we cannot adjust our reading or production schedules to writer-directed deadlines.
Send us work you would be proud to see in print or online. The best way to discover what kind of manuscripts we seek is to read our current issue and at least one back issue of The Vincent Brothers Review! We publish themed issues. Visit our website for our latest online selections and details about our upcoming themes: www.thevincentbrothersreview.com.
Our most recent print issue (#24: themed “Changes”) is $16.77 each postpaid; perfect-bound back issues are $14 each postpaid; saddle-stitched back issues are $5.00 each.
Take a look at our print copies! We enjoy the process of putting print issues together—attention to details; balance between words, white space, and image; and the synchronicity between writers and artists previously unknown to each other—and we think that joy shows.
Writers seeking publication should support and read their fellow writers’ work and the work of the magazines they are approaching for possible publication.
Great writers are always great readers, too. Set high reading standards in addition to high writing standards. If you plan to market your work, you must be aware of what that market is publishing—research online literary publications, as well as the litmag sections of libraries and bookstores. Once you’ve found a few magazines you enjoy reading, subscribe to them, and study the material they feature. The habit of reading contemporary litmags and eMags will enhance and broaden your appreciation of literature and assist you in placing your work.
We make our manuscript selections based on the author’s word choices, style, and the images, ideas, and characters those words convey. The typeface used by an author is not a factor in our consideration; however, manuscripts presented in a clear, legible manner are easier to read.
Read your manuscript out loud before sending it out.
Letting a manuscript rest for a week or so before approaching it for the second edit is a good idea.
Only unpublished manuscripts are acceptable, though we do accept simultaneous submissions. In fact, we encourage simultaneous submissions as our response times can be long. If you send a simultaneous submission, please notify us as soon as possible when that manuscript is accepted.
AGAIN—please note that our response times can be as long as a year, or even longer. If you’re in a hurry to see your name in print or fast-tracking your publication career, TVBR is not for you. We have a small staff of readers who all work other jobs and we take our time when considering manuscripts. And then, we take our time putting the issues together
The Vincent Brothers Review editors seek submissions of Flash Fiction, Time Capsules, Haibun, Short-Lined Poems, and Dispatch Prose pieces (up to 2,500 words ) reflecting on the themes of “Rock ’n’ Roll Album that Influenced How I Listened to Music,” “An Elegy For a Writer/Book That Changed My Life,” OR “Immigrants Get The Job Done” for our Substack newsletter—“The Vincent Brothers Review Weekly Reader.” The reading fee is $3.00 per submission and you can include up to three Time Capsules, three Haibun, five to seven Short-Lined Poems, or one Dispatch Prose piece per each submission.
For examples of the work we seek, see our “The Vincent Brothers Review Weekly Reader” here. You will need to sign up for a subscription by email, but subscriptions are FREE for the time being.
Our modest submission fees are used to cover payment to writers, as well as the production and printing costs of both our Substack and hard-copy issues. All rights revert to authors upon publication.
The Vincent Brothers Review is a paying market, and we typically pay $35 per Time Capsule/Haibun we select for publication. We pay for accepted manuscripts UPON PUBLICATION. Our modest submission fees are used to cover payment to writers and staff, as well as the production and printing costs of both our online and hard-copy issues, and our newsletter.
All rights revert to authors upon publication.
This submission portal is on a rolling basis, open all year.
Time Capsules are brainstorms that briefly capture and express specific Times/Places that no longer exist, that WILL exist, or that are eternally fleeting. Imagine you’re filling a Time Capsule to show future recipients what it’s like to be alive RIGHT NOW. Or, what it was like to live long, long ago. The only tools you have to make that reveal are between 500 and 1,500 words. Choose your words wisely.
More specifically, these words illuminate what you want to remember about this time we’re living in, this crossroads for humanity, this stand-up-for-the-humans-right-now time.
Or, 500–1,500 words about what you remember of the Before Times—what it was like before internet, cell phones, or binge watching TV. Each word will need to pull its weight enough to transport your reader to the exact place and time you’re describing.
The haibun form is a combination of prose and haiku. See the links below for samples and more information about the haibun form:
https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/
https://poets.org/text/more-birds-bees-and-trees-closer-look-writing-haibun
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/haibun-poems-poetic-form
The Vincent Brothers Review editors seek entries from UNC-system* institutions students ONLY for our “Waves”-themed Short Story Contest.
First Prize of $1,000, second prize of $500, third prize $300, and fourth prize $200 will be awarded to the top four selections. Two honorable mentions will receive TVBR merchandise. Entries must be submitted electronically by February 1, 2025. There is no entrance fee. One story per author only with a maximum word count of 4,000 words.
The theme for the upcoming contest is “Waves.” Waves represent change, renewal, ebb and flow, and constant motion. Dive into the complexities waves present and see what interpretations the tide washes up in your stories. Perhaps one of the following literary quotes can help you get your writing started.
"The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea."—Vladimir Nabokov
"There's nothing wrong with looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring outside of the tent." —Dave Barry
"Life is strong and fragile. It's a paradox... It's both things, like quantum physics: It's a particle and a wave at the same time. It all exists together." —Joan Jett
"Sound waves do not die out. They travel forever and forever. All our sentences are immoral. Our useless bleatings circle the universe for all eternity." —Fay Weldon
"Nature is forever arriving and forever departing, forever approaching, forever vanishing; but in her vanishings there seems to be ever the waving of a hand, in all her partings a promise of meetings father along the road." —Richard Le Gallienne
Submission Requirements:
- Please submit your story** in a Word document using Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double-spaced. The maximum word count length is 4,000 words.
- Use Substack-friendly formatting including a space between paragraphs rather than indents.
- For TVBR to verify college students at the select institutions are participating, we ask that you please upload a photo of your student ID at the bottom of your Word submission.
Selection Process:
Eight contest finalists will be chosen by TVBR editors from the pool of entries. Previous contest winner Erica Turnipseed will choose the final four place winners and two honorable mentions, and all entries are slated to be published in TVBR's hard-copy issue #30 with a projected publication date of late 2025. All entries will also be considered for both online and hard-copy issue publication in TVBR.
Judge: Erica Simone Turnipseed.
Erica Simone Turnipseed is the author of the children's picture book, Bigger Than Me (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2023) and two adult novels, A Love Noire (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2003) and Hunger (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2006). She recently completed two manuscripts, one a novel titled American Sibyl that follows the legacy of Clio, the main character in her TVBR award-winning short story, “The Nine.” For more information, visit www.ericaonthejourney.com.
*Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, UNC Asheville, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro, UNC School of the Arts, UNC Pembroke, UNC Wilmington, Western Carolina University, and Winston-Salem State University.
**TVBR does not permit AI-generated submissions