So You Want to Write for Pomposity? Good Luck!

If submission guidelines told the truth

Do you have what it takes to write for Pomposity?

Welcome to Pomposity, the most exclusive publication on Medium and the most widely read and admired compendium in the whole of this blessed universe.

This is a blatant lie. Who do you think we are, The New Yorker?

We accept only the planet’s most excellent writers into our inner circle.

We really couldn’t give a fuck how well you write as long you bring a few thousand new readers along with you,

All our stories are completely original and written from the deepest, most sacred places in our writers’ hearts.

To be honest, we have no idea where ten percent of them originate. The other ninety percent are vanity projects written by our editors, and they don’t even have hearts. (Ah, make that “editor.” It’s just me. I live in a studio apartment over “The Whistling Kettle” tea shop and tattoo parlor in Schenectady. I’m psychotically prolific.)

Last year, Pomposity published over 1,500 stories.

That part is legit. I have no life.

If you genuinely want to be included in our pantheon of distinguished writers, there are several non-negotiable steps you must take to validate your suitability and commitment to our publication:

• Read every story we’ve ever published in its entirety, commenting insightfully on all of them.
• Remember to clap 50 times on every one of the stories, including those in our archives.
• Follow all our writers and subscribe to all their newsletters. We’ll be checking to make sure you do!

Anyone desperate enough to do all that is such a loser. Besides, there’s no way I would take the time to check and see if you did do all that. Doing that would make me a loser.

What we will and will not publish

• We say a joyous “YES!” to fiction that transports us to a mystical and mysterious realm. We welcome poetry that cauterizes the essence of our beings, leaving us spent and utterly bereft. We crave first-person stories from which our readers can solve the puzzle of the meaning of life in under four minutes.

Good luck with that.

• We say an emphatic “NO!” to clickbait headlines, “How to…” stories and listicles. These things pollute Medium and pervert all that’s holy.

That’s what I’ll be writing.

If you intend to profit from your writing on Medium, you are unclean, and we will have nothing whatever to do with you.

Nobody profits from this gig, but “yours truly,” asshole.

To improve your chances with Pomposity’s editors, sign-up for our partner program “Collaborator” to receive valuable feedback on your submission. It’s free!

It’s not free. That was a typo. Maybe it used to be. I don’t remember. Anyway, it’s $24.95 a month. Signing up will not get your stories preferential treatment, but it might make you feel like you’re getting somewhere, which you’re not. Sucks but whatever. What? You didn’t think I was doing this for nothing, did you? Putz.

Send us your very best. Our editors are dying to see your work.

I couldn’t care less about your pathetic scribbling.

Until then, savor the sensational, revel in the possibilities, and channel the divine!

Fuck off. I have to finish this listicle.

Signed,

The Editors of Pomposity

(We’re rooting for you!)

You get the picture.

©2020, Denise Shelton. All rights reserved.

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