We hate most of the stuff that’s on TV. That’s why we started Muscle & Blood Literary Journal. We’re sick of having our intelligence insulted by every program that comes on, or being treated like we’re part of some massive cross-section of people they’re trying to appeal to.

We’re for everyone: working class, upper class, black, white, indigenous, male, female, early 20s, late 60s, and anyone else. The only thing our readers have in common is they’re intelligent people. You’ll find that kind of person everywhere, and if there’s one thing we’re sure of, it’s that you’ll find the other kind everywhere too.

Muscle & Blood Literary Journal is not TV–it’s a magazine, and not the trash kind they sell on newsstands. Rather, it’s a literary journal, which publishes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and reviews. To paraphrase an oompa loompa, this means no commercials.

What kind of poetry and fiction do we feature? The good kind–the kind that sounds like the author knows what they’re doing. We’re not big on stories about vampires, elves, or aliens, and we definitely aren’t going to publish anything hateful. Aside from that, the writing in our magazine could be about anything, as long as it’s about something–we hate getting to the end of a poem or story and asking, “So?” Poems can be in any form, except haiku–really, we’ve had enough of those for our lifetime, and we’re sure you have too.

We also publish nonfiction about the issues of modern society, which may include the problems of 24-hour news, or the implications of product placement on television’s artistic merit–we really hate TV. But if you’re slow (and it’s OK, some of us are too), TV is a metaphor.

Our first issue, Issue 1, is available now in electronic format. The print edition will be released in late September or early October. We are currently taking submissions for Issue 2.

Muscle & Blood Literary Journal is put out by Diamond Point Press.