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Writing can be lonely. Not metaphorically lonely — literally lonely. It’s hours spent inside a mind no one else can access. It’s choosing silence when the world wants noise. It’s disappearing into a story only you can hear, only you can hold. Most days, it’s just you at a desk, trying to say something the way it deserves to be said. And even when you finally finish a piece, the loneliness doesn’t end. You send it to a friend, a partner, a writing group, hoping they’ll feel wh

Every magazine has its lane. Some publish horror that bites. Others prefer fiction that aches quietly in the corners of the human heart. The literary ones say they want realism; the genre ones want monsters. But what about the stories that blur the line? The ones that live somewhere between the real and the imagined—between faith and fear, grief and transformation? Those are the stories we love. Neon & Smoke was built for the in-between. For the stories that don’t quite belon

A reflection on literary rejection, alignment, and finding the right home for your stories—from the editors at Neon & Smoke.