A badass room on our website full of features and departments:
- Currently,: We read a lot of newspapers. We’ve tried to stop reading our own social media feeds. We’ve deleted some personal social media. We’ve watched a lot of talk shows and news reports about what’s going on in the world. We’re tired of secondhand accounts. We want yours—firsthand. Tell us what’s going on in the world, according to you.
- The Great Pause Online: In 2020, the year of our Lord, things got—weird. Some things are getting better. Some things are getting worse. Some things are standing still. In this department, we hear from writers and artists from around the globe talk about their experiences in quarantine/isolation/social distancing/civil unrest/revolution/ et cetera. Some of the work featured in this space was compiled into an (anti-fascist, humanist, fun, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, breath of fresh air) emergency coffee table edition, for sale in our store now.We will continue to use The Great Pause online indefinitely for artistic work that pauses on the heartbeat of present global circumstances. And who knows, maybe we will create another coffee table book in the future out of this space!!!
- PauseCards: Address people places or things in the form of one of our online postcards designed in house! (I.e. Dear Australians, Dear Hulu, Dear White Person, Dear Firefly Fans, Dear Baby on the Airplane Sitting Across from Me).
- The Midnight Snack: You can’t fool us. Just like you couldn’t fool your mom in sixth grade, sneaking into the kitchen at two a.m., pilfering a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from the pantry to eat in front of the TV while you watched the Sham Wow! infomercial for the third school night in a row. We aren’t going to ground you though, and we won’t tell your mom. Why? Because we’re right alongside you as fully grown adults eating cold grocery store fried chicken at midnight while we pretend not to cry watching Steven Universe on our second-hand couches. We’re The Midnight Snack, and we eat our feelings just like everyone else. So open your pantries, raid your fridges, empty that one pillowcase full of candy from your kid’s last Trick-or-Treat sesh, and send us all the food writing our nutrient-deficient digestive systems can handle. Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Ingredient Lists, Recipes, Nutritional Information: we want it all. Just don’t use the microwave—you’ll wake up Dad.
- Press Play: You ever drink a lot of wine and sit around sobbing at nineties classic rom-coms or yell at old black-and-whites when a Cary Grant type calls an Ingrid Bergman type a silly lady? …No? Just us? We pile onto our fading floral-print seventies couch—you know the one; your grandma has one just like it—watch movies, and write our thoughts. Sometimes they’re reviews or commentaries; sometimes they’re braided personal narratives. We’re watching everything from Get Out to 10 Things I Hate About You all the way back to A Philadelphia Story. What are you watching?
- Craft-Splaining: A space for recorded craft talks by contributors. What can our readership learn from you and how you approach your art and writing? This is your space for exploring your craft. Craft videos can be in the form of interviews, demonstrations, presentations, one-act plays, stop-motion animation ;), et cetera. Anything goes! If you don’t have video editing experience, no worries. Record your vision and we’ll do the rest! We’ll also accept personal craft essays in this space.
- Throwbacks: We get nostalgic. We love old things (like VCRs and scrunchies and tape decks and remember that weird yo-yo trend in the 90s?). Browse past hits & weird old ditties. Check out new translations of classic works, read from the public domain, relive your childhood dreams. Send us your fave throwbacks, and we’ll feature them in The Family Room.
- Reading Corner: Tell us what you’re reading or send us a book review or interview. Or pitch something to info@presspausepress.org. Are you a past contributor/on our fight club roll call? Do you have a book that is out or coming out? Send us that too, so we can put it up on our contributor bookshelf.
- The Cauldron: Tell us an old story in a new way: Vladimir Propp theorized there were 31 basic storytelling elements in every Russian fairy tale. Leo Tolstoy said only two stories existed: a hero goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. Whether the roots are in Hans Christian Anderson, Ovid, Homer, or Greek myths, we want all your retellings. Choose a favorite villain and tell their side of the story. Reinterpret scenes from religious texts or write an ancient tale in a modern setting. Give new meaning to an old story. Think Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. Think Anna Maria Hong’s H&G, Gregory Maguire’s The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Malinda Lo’s Ash, or Sue Monk Kidd’s The Book of Longings. Rewind. Press pause. Revise. Rewrite. “There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” —Mark Twain
PITCH US SOMETHING
Want to set up shop in The Family Room and become an editor/content producer for a column, feature, or department to The Family Room? Fill out our pitch form. We’re open to any and all ideas you have.
FINE PRINT
- Do not send multiple submissions in one document for The Family Room. Please submit separately to each department. You may submit to two departments at once, but please do so in separate submissions that indicate your intended department.
- There is no publishing schedule for The Family Room. We publish online whenever we see things that are great in our Family Room submissions.
About the Press
Press Pause is a literary magazine with zero social media presence. No Facebook. No Twitter (#amwriting). No Insta, no Snapchat, and none of whatever that TikTok thing is.
We want to create an online (and real-life) place away from the usual spaces—a primarily quiet place. Right now that means not spending our time shouting into the sometimes hapless mostly merciless usually noisy void of social media. Please see more of our thoughts about this mission on our FAQ page or in our print volumes’ letters from the editor/s.
At Press Pause, we are dedicated to the idea that the world would probably be a better place, at least somewhat, if we all took a moment to pause and reflect before doing (or tweeting.retweeting.subtweeting.commenting.condemning.ranting.sharing.liking.hearting.).
Think of us as a quiet literary think tank. A closed room with a comfortable reclining chair, lots of sunlight and a beautiful vase of daisies. This is your space. This is our space, far away from the noise. For more about our mission, see our basic tenets page and/or our FAQs. We publish two volumes per year online and in print and ventured into coffee table books in 2021. For quarterly-ish updates, subscribe to our newsletter.