There are now less than four weeks left to submit your poems and short stories to our next issue on the theme of ‘Light’.

With July just around the corner, we’re less than four weeks away from the submissions deadline for our eighteenth issue, exploring the theme of ‘Light’. As ever, we’re keen to make this the best issue of Popshot yet, so if you have a piece of writing already penned, or half a piece forming in your head, make sure to send it in before July 25th at the very latest. A few things to note so far:

1) We’ve been receiving a lot of poems but not enough short fiction. So if you have a short story that sits within the 3,500 word count and connects with the theme, we would love to read it.

2) If the pieces of writing you want to submit have been published before, just make sure you have full rights to publish them again.

3) If you’ve been published in a recent issue, that doesn’t mean you can’t submit to this one. Previous contributors and new contributors are given equal consideration.

Finally, if you’ve already submitted your poetry or short fiction, rest assured, your writing is under consideration. If you haven’t yet, make sure you acquaint yourself with the submissions guidelines at popshotpopshot.com/submit/

We are now accepting short fiction and poetry submissions for our eighteenth issue on the theme of ‘Light’. Send in your writing before July 25th.

With seventeen beautiful issues under our belt (you can see them all here), we’re hoping to make our eighteenth edition the brightest and most brilliant one yet.

Light has a multitude of meanings and (nearly) all of them are positive. They cover illumination, enlightenment, weightlessness, discovery and delicateness. This is what we would love to fill this issue with: fiction and poetry that gifts our readers with a more vibrant view of the world. In our most recent issue, a prose poem called Giraffe by Bryony Littlefair quietly embodied this feeling of tiptoeing towards the light. The positive reaction from readers all over the world was a joy to observe, and for the Light issue, we would love to see more of it.

If you’re interested in seeing your writing published and illustrated in Popshot’s eighteenth issue, head to our submit page for the full submissions guidelines. As always, we’re open to contributions from anyone, anywhere in the world. Whether you’ve been published in Popshot before or never been published anywhere, every submission is welcomed and given the time it deserves.

Finally, if you’ve never actually read an issue of Popshot before, we would encourage you to pick one up. In the last four issues of the magazine, two-thirds of our contributors have either been print subscribers, digital subscribers or have read a copy of the magazine before. So, if you would like to increase your understanding of the work we publish — whilst supporting Popshot at the same time — pick up a copy or subscribe.

Our brand new issue is out today, featuring a captivating collection of illustrated short stories and poems that cast us into a divergent future.

We’re delighted to announce that our seventeenth issue, The Future Issue, is fresh off the press and out now. Inside, we’ll find a couple living out their desires in a digital world, a woman on the hunt for a code that could save the planet, a robot who starts to experience human emotions, a father who finds himself slowly melting, and a place where no future exists at all. For a more detailed introduction, read this issue’s editorial (interlaced with spreads from the Future issue) directly below.

“If you’re a regular consumer of news, the future is not bright and (aside from Donald Trump’s Wotsit-esque colouring) it’s not orange. No, it’s probably a darker, muddier colour than that. The future is frightening and divisive. It’s evil and full of stupidity. It’s a few steps away from an apocalypse. Even if you don’t read the news often, you might, through osmosis, subscribe to this view.”

“Many outlets on the internet will probably support it because that’s what the internet does. It allows people to express extreme views or aspects of their characters fairly anonymously. So they do. Then these views are shared or responded to with similarly extreme views layered on top. Then it becomes interesting (because everyone is fascinated by drama) and shortly after it becomes upsetting because we start to believe that this is a true representation of humanity and its future.”

“What we tend to forget is that the media and the internet isn’t representative of the real future, because the real future is nowhere near as dramatic. The real future won’t sell newspapers. It won’t generate impressive page views. It won’t cause a reaction. The real future is far closer to what you see when you walk out of your house today than it is to the media’s portrayal. But, for some reason, we start to believe the media and social media reality more than we believe our own.”

“What we’ve come to realise through the creation of this issue is that the unsettling predictions and depictions of the future do serve a purpose. A number of the pieces published in the pages of this issue represent a world, or a situation, less satisfactory than the one we’re currently in. This is especially true of the short stories. We’ve published them here because we think they make for interesting narratives; but they also serve to question, challenge and inspire thought. They are warning signs, pointing to dark corners to make sure we don’t stray into them. However, they’re not here to encourage the abandonment of optimism. Quite the opposite. Sometimes it’s important to point to the darkness to remind ourselves to stay in the light.”

Pre-orders and subscribers’ copies will begin landing on British doormats from tomorrow, with readers further afield receiving them in the next week or two. The new issue will hit British newsstands next week, arriving in bookshops in Europe and the rest of the world by mid-April.

To get your hands on a copy, buy a single issue for £6 + p&p or subscribe from £10 to get The Future Issue as your initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published. We’re off for a sit down.

Take a sneaky peek at the cover of our impending issue, The Future Issue, now available to pre-order and launching on April 1st.

After sending our seventeenth issue off to print this morning, we’re delighted to unveil its cover artwork, illustrated by long-time Popshot collaborator, Jörn Kaspuhl. In the lead up to its release in just over two weeks’ time, we’ll be revealing snippets from the new issue over on our Facebook and Instagram.

The Future Issue can be pre-ordered at our single issues page for £6 + p&p, or you can subscribe from £10 and receive Issue 16, Issue 17 and Issue 18 over the coming year, plus complete access to our digital edition, containing every issue we’ve ever published. That’s £30 worth of Popshot for just £10 with all postage included in the price. Crazy? Crazy. Find out more at our subscribe page.

With our forthcoming ‘Future’ issue launching on April 1st, we’re offering up all available issues of Popshot for just £3 plus postage.

The half price sale will run for the next three days. While most issues of Popshot have now sold out, our Liberate, Adventure and Hope issues are available for as long as stocks last.

UK readers will be able to pick up all three issues for £12 with postage included — a price that almost rivals the value of our subscriptions. Our readers in Europe and the rest of the world can acquire all three for £16.50 and £18 respectively. Head to our single issues page to pick up yours.

The cover for our forthcoming ‘Future’ issue will be released next week, so if you’re interested to find out what the future looks like, keep your eyelids on your inbox.

With a new year just days away, there are now only four weeks left to submit your poems and short stories to our next issue on the theme of ‘Future’.

Until January 26th, we’ll be accepting poems of up to 25 lines and short stories of up to 3,000 words that relate to the theme of ‘Future’. So if you want to kick off the new year by getting your writing published, illustrated and read by thousands of people across the globe, make sure it’s polished up and in with us before the deadline passes.

A little tip for submitting. We’ve been receiving a lot of morbid and depressing depictions of the future over the last few weeks. And while we’re certainly not averse to dystopian work (we’ve published quite a bit of it during our time), we don’t want our readers to finish this issue with a heavy heart. If you have a poem or short story up your sleeve that’s pretty gloomy, see if you can turn it into something that won’t make us want to reach for the nearest noose.

If you’ve already sent in your submission for this issue, fear not, your writing is already under consideration. If not, make sure you acquaint yourself with the submissions guidelines at popshotpopshot.com/submit.

We’re looking forward to reading your literary masterpieces.

Literary submissions are now open for our 17th issue on the theme of ‘Future’. Send in your short fiction or poetry before the January 26th deadline.

The future has always been a fascinating concept. It’s the more mysterious, inspiring sibling of the past and present. While the past has been concluded and the present is predictable, the future (especially the distant future) lives only in our heads. It can be whatever we choose it to be. It is the pinnacle of imagination; the ultimate blank canvas to project our dreams, aspirations and fears upon.

The word has been scribbled down on our list of themes for five or six years. Each time we considered it in the lead up to a new issue, there was always another theme that felt more timely. However, global events of the last few months have turned that on its head. Following the recent publication of The Hope Issue, we now can’t think of a theme more timely than this one.

Thus, it is with great excitement and eagerness that we open the doors to literary submissions for our 17th issue on the theme of ‘Future’. For the full submissions guidelines, head to our submit page and make sure that you send in your short fiction or poetry long before the deadline of January 26th.

To familiarise yourself with the kind of work we publish, buy a copy or subscribe from just £10 a year.

With Christmas around the corner, what do you get for that person with a penchant for literature, short fiction or poetry? We might have the answer…

Try not to panic but with November nearing its end, Christmas is officially around the corner. Or if you choose to measure it by Harrods’ Christmas Shop, it’s been around the corner since August. True story.

To herald the impending festive season, we’ve put together a little duet of the issues we’ve published this year — The Adventure Issue and The Hope Issue — and are offering them up for just £10 + p&p here. Order today and they’ll be on their way to your front door by tomorrow morning.

Alternatively, subscribe from £10 and gift The Adventure Issue or The Hope Issue initially, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published. Just pick the gift subscription option at our subscribe page. Unless you’re buying it for yourself, of course…

To make sure your copies arrive in time, here are our final posting dates:

December 3rd: Africa, Middle East
December 7th: Asia, Cyprus, Far East, Eastern Europe (except Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia)
December 8th: Caribbean, Central America, South America
December 10th: Australia, Greece, New Zealand
December 14th: Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland
December 15th: Canada, Finland, Sweden, USA
December 16th: Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland
December 17th: Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg
December 20th: UK (1st Class post)

A swift inhalation of every page from our recently launched Hopeissue, condensed into a 16 second animated GIF for optimum sensory overload.

In spite of the digital world’s many innovations, it’s still not that easy to get a feel for a magazine online. Nothing really beats the quick thumb flick that takes place at the newsstand or within the walls of a finely arranged bookshop.

That hasn’t stopped us trying though. With the arrival of our 16th issue just under two weeks ago, we’ve now created a 16 second animation that takes you from the front cover to the back cover in thumb-flicking mimicry.

Have a watch above and if you would like to sweep through the new issue in real, tangible form, buy a single issue for £6 + p&p or subscribe from £10. Subscribers will receive The Hope Issue as their initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published.

Our brand new issue is out today, exploring the theme of hope through a beautiful and bizarre collection of illustrated short fiction and poetry.

We’re delighted to announce that our sixteenth issue, The Hope Issue, is fresh off the press and out now. Nestled within its pages, we’ll find a daughter extracting memories from her mother’s mind, a couple feasting on slices of rainbow, refugees spreading roots in friendlier lands, a woman who begins to disappear from sight and someone with a small, bright bird inhabiting their chest. To introduce it in a little more detail, here are some words from our editor:

“Despite having been on our list of potential themes for a while, there’s something that feels rather timely about putting out an issue on the theme of hope. When we announced the theme of this issue and opened up for literary submissions, the UK was just three weeks away from the EU referendum vote and Donald Trump was threatening to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. By the time submissions closed, the UK had voted to leave the EU and Trump’s threat had become a frightening reality.

Although the mainstream media would probably have you think otherwise, it’s not that these are dark times or that hope is needed any more than it has been in the past. This isn’t the first time we’ve had the threat of a lunatic in charge of a major superpower. Or that the UK and Europe haven’t seen eye to eye politically. Or any other current cause for concern outside of world politics. But for something as inherently timeless as hope, there is something that makes it feel strangely opportune.

Hope treads an intriguing path between darkness and light, pessimism and optimism. It is the ground for believing that something good may happen, typically from a place where goodness hasn’t prevailed. And that dynamic from bad to good, wrong to right, dark to light, is why hope felt like such an important subject to explore.

The result is a collection of poems, short stories and illustrations that, predominantly, champion the moment when the first glimmer of light breaks into the darkness. From Rowan Dent’s May, a poem drawing parallels between nature’s transition from winter to spring and our own, to I Hope This Email Finds You Well, Elizabeth Lovatt’s short story about a person locked in a dark room with no memory of how they got there, the idea of emerging into the light features regularly — in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

Nature is also a prevailing theme. If the pieces in this issue are anything to go by, we look to the natural world when times are tough for a sage reminder of the order of things. Storms always pass, trees shed their leaves then replenish them, and the sun always rises again. In the darkest of times, only hope allows us to see that.”

To get your hands on a copy, buy a single issue for £6 + p&p or subscribe from £10 to get The Hope Issue as your initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published.

Due for release in a week’s time, flick through a few spreads from our forthcoming sixteenth edition to get a taste of what lies within.

Last week, we unveiled the cover of our sixteenth edition, The Hope Issue, illustrated by Ivan Canu. Bringing together 40 writers and illustrators, the new issue features a timeless collection of poems, short stories and illustrations that explore hope in all its weird and wonderful ways.

Now with just a week until its release, we’re pleased to present some spreads from the issue too. To place your eyeballs on them, head to http://popshotpopshot.com/20161221-issue-16-the-hope-issue/

Pre-order your copy for £5 + p&p or subscribe for £10 to receive three print issues and complete access to our digital edition, with all postage included. God bless economies of scale.

Due for release on October 1st, glimpse the cover of our forthcoming Hope issue, illustrated by Ivan Canu and now available to pre-order.

After sending our sixteenth issue off to print this morning, we’re delighted to unveil its cover artwork, created by Milan-based illustrator, Ivan Canu. While it’s being printed, trimmed, dried, bound and boxed over the coming weeks, we’ll be gradually releasing snippets from the issue over at our Facebook and Instagram.

The Hope issue can be pre-ordered for £5 + p&p right now (usual price is £6), or you can subscribe from £10 and receive Issue 15 in the next few days, followed by Issue 16 in October and Issue 17 in the spring. A print subscription also grants you complete access to the digital edition of Popshot, containing every issue we’ve ever published. Find out more at our subscribe page.

The digital edition of Popshot has been given an overhaul, making all 15 issues of the magazine now easily readable from any device.

In the few years since we released the digital edition of Popshot in partnership with Exact Editions, it’s been mainly available as an app for smartphones or tablets. However, the good folk over at Exact Editions have now built a new web reader, making the reading experience from your computer as smooth as it is on any other device.

Preview Popshot on the new web reader here and if you would like to gain full digital access to every issue we’ve published (most of which are now out of print), you can do so for £5.50 a year.

Or, for the best of both worlds, subscribe to Popshot from £10 a year and receive three print issues plus complete access to the digital edition for as long as your subscription is active. An additional £4.50 to receive three print issues straight to your doormat? Outrageous. Full details can be found at our subscribe page.

The latest issue of Popshot can now be found within the walls of the highly reputable lifestyle retailer, Anthropologie.

We’ve long been fans of Anthropologie — an indefinable retailer that sells everything from clothing to homeware to beauty products to, as of a few days ago, Popshot. Sitting alongside lifestyle titles such as Kinfolkand Cereal, it’s the first literary magazine that the retailer has taken on.

Inside London, Popshot can be found at their Regent Street, Kings Road and Spitalfields stores, and outside of London, in Edinburgh, Bath and Guildford. If you’re passing, pop in and have a flick through our latest issue. Or if you don’t live anywhere near an Anthropologie store, pick up a copy direct from us or subscribe from £10 a year to receive three print issues plus complete digital access to all of our out-of-print editions.

We are now open for short fiction and poetry submissions for our forthcoming issue of Popshot on the theme of ‘Hope’.

Despite having been on our list of potential themes for a while now, there’s something that feels rather timely about the theme of Hope. Although the mainstream media would probably have you think otherwise, it’s not that these are dark times or that hope is needed any more than it has been in the past. This isn’t the first occasion that we’ve had the threat of a lunatic in charge of a major superpower. Or that Britain has been on the cusp of a possible European fallout. Or any other current cause for concern outside of world politics. But for something as inherently timeless as hope, there is something that makes it feel strangely opportune.

Hope treads an intriguing path between darkness and light, positivity and negativity. It is the ground for believing that something good may happen, typically from a place where it hasn’t. And that dynamic from bad to good, wrong to right, dark to light is why we’ve decided to name ‘Hope’ as the theme of our 16th issue — which is now officially open for literary submissions.

If you would like the opportunity to have your short fiction or poetry published and illustrated in the next issue of the magazine, find out the full submissions guidelines at our submit page.

On June 2nd, the theme for our sixteenth issue will be announced and the doors will fling open for short fiction and poetry submissions.

We’ll be accepting short stories of up to 2,500 words and poems of up to 25 lines. To get a better idea of what we’ll be looking for, read the short article that our editor wrote in the lead up to literary submissions for our last issue. It points to a few standout pieces of writing from previous issues and attempts to verbalise our instincts for what makes for a truly great piece of writing.

The opening of submissions will be announced here in less than a week. Stay tuned to find out more and to get the best idea of the kind of work we publish in Popshot, pick up a copy of our latest issue or subscribe from £10 a year and receive three print issues plus complete digital access to all of our out-of-print editions.

Home to some of the most prestigious poets in its long publishing history, The London Magazine is now open for submissions to its annual poetry prize.

First established in 1732, The London Magazine has a long and highly illustrious history. Not only is it one of the few magazines that can claim it had to temporarily cease publication because its editor was shot in a duel, it has also published original works from the likes of H. G. Wells, Sylvia Plath, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ted Hughes and Harold Pinter.

For its annual poetry prize, The London Magazine is looking for previously unpublished poems of up to 40 lines. There is no criteria as to the theme, form or style of the poems, but they are looking for diverse work which is not afraid to innovate and startle. The competition will be judged by Andrew McMillan, whose debut collection Physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award, and Rebecca Perry, who gained a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and a T S Eliot Prize shortlisting for her debut collection, Beauty/Beauty.

To put your work forward for a first prize of £300, second prize of £200 and third prize of £150, plus publication in the magazine itself, head to The London Magazine website for full details. Submissions close on June 30th 2016.

Now in its fourth incarnation, four fresh Faber New Poets pamphlets have been released in the ongoing partnership between Faber and the Arts Council.

First launched back in 2009, the Faber New Poets series aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their writing careers. Created by the innovative publishing house Faber & Faber and funded by Arts Council England, this year sees the arrival of four new poetry pamphlets from four exciting new writers; making up the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th pamphlets in the ongoing series.

The writers who rose out of the whopping 900 manuscript submissions are Elaine Beckett, Crispin Best, Rachel Curzon and Sam Buchan-Watts. Loyal and longstanding Popshot readers may remember Sam Buchan-Watts’ beautiful poem ‘Temping’ which graced our fourth issue, The Modern Living Issue, a few years ago. Former Faber New Poets include Fiona Benson, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Heather Phillipson, Jack Underwood, Joe Dunthorne, Annie Katchinska, Sam Riviere, Tom Warner, Rachael Allen, Will Burns, Zaffar Kunial and Declan Ryan.

You can pick up copies of the newly released pamphlets from the Faber website and can see the poets on tour here.

 Illustrator Thomas Danthony and animator Christopher van Wilson have teamed up to bring the cover of our new issue into animated form.

Following the launch of our Adventure issue a few days ago — find out more about it here — we’re proud to release a smart animation courtesy of Thomas Danthony and the very talented animator & motion designer Christopher van Wilson. Celebrating the arrival of our fifteenth edition, the 40-second short brings Danthony’s gorgeous illustration to life as the cover gradually builds around it. Place your eye sockets on it above and find a slightly shorter, 15-second version over on our Instagram.

To get your hands on a copy of The Adventure Issue, you can buy a single issue for £6 + p&p or subscribe from £10 and get the new issue as your initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published.

The Adventure Issue is here, featuring a sterling line up of illustrated fiction and poetry that travels from the moors of Yorkshire to the surface of the moon.

Arriving fresh off the press, accompanied by the heady aroma of uncoated paper drenched in ink, we’re pleased as punch to unveil our latest issue — The Adventure Issue.

Comprising twenty short stories and poems, illustrated by talents such as Adams Carvalho, Stephan Schmitz, Marie Bergeron and Peter Locke, it’s another issue that we’re very proud to be putting out into the world. In true Popshot tradition, we’ve unearthed an ineffable raft of writers; a handful of whom are being published here for the first time. Spread across the pages of the new issue, expect to find an alluring collection of writings that take us to the moon, the end of the world, a deserted cluster of islands, a lake in Mexico, a turbulent hot air balloon ride and an infant’s first encounter with language.

For a better idea of what lies within, browse through a few images below and have a flick through some spreads here. To get your hands on your own copy, you can buy a single issue for £6 + p&p or subscribe from £10 and get The Adventure Issue as your initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published.

Pre-orders and subscribers’ copies will be landing on doormats all over the world from tomorrow, with the new issue hitting British newsstands from the beginning of next week. Bookshops across Europe and the rest of the world should find Popshot on their shelves by mid-April. If you would like your copy sooner than that, simply order or subscribe direct from this very website. We’re off for a sit down.

Launching in two weeks’ time, take a look at the cover of our forthcoming Adventure issue, illustrated by the ever-stylish Thomas Danthony.

After Issue 5, 13 and 14 consecutively sold out last month, we’re even more pleased than usual to announce the imminent arrival of our new issue: The Adventure Issue. Going to press this morning, we can now reveal the cover artwork for our fifteenth edition, created by Thomas Danthony.

The new issue can be pre-ordered for £6 + p&p, or you can subscribe from £10 and receive Issue 15, 16 and 17 over the coming year plus complete access to the digital edition of Popshot, containing every issue we’ve ever published. That’s over £25 of Popshot heft for just £10; our little way of rewarding the loyal.

Keep your eyes on our Facebook and Instagram to see snippets of the new issue before it launches on March 31st and make sure you reserve your copy here.

Spoken word artists Benjamin Zephaniah, Hollie McNish, Joelle Taylor and Dizraeli cast a new light on some classic, canonical page poems.

Created as part of the Poetry Society’s Page Fright project — which uses hip hop and spoken word to introduce canonical poetry to young people — four of today’s most prominent spoken word artists have taken to the studio to bring new life to four well-established and venerated poems.

As well as Hollie McNish’s take on The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson above, Benjamin Zephaniah has performed Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas, Dizraeli has tackled Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Joelle Taylor has shown a new side to Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen.

As well as encouraging us to look at the classics differently, each writer has also performed a piece of their own and given an interview about their writing, and their chosen poet’s influence on their work. To watch all of the films, head over to the Page Fright section of the Poetry Society’s website.

Following the closure of literary submissions last week, we have now chosen the poems and short stories that will be published in the ‘Adventure’ issue.

A huge thank you to every single writer who took the time to consider, compose and send in their work to our ‘Adventure’ issue throughout December and January. With the standard of writing increasing every issue, our shortlisting process is getting more lengthy every time — a great indication of the salubriousness of today’s short fiction and poetry.

The authors of the chosen pieces have now all been notified so if you submitted to this issue but haven’t received an email from us in the last 12 hours, your work hasn’t been selected on this occasion. Our apologies for not being able to be more personal in delivering the news and thanks again for your time. If you didn’t submit to the ‘Adventure’ issue, we’ll hope to see you send something in for our next issue.

The Adventure Issue will launch on April 1st with literary submissions for our sixteenth issue opening up in June. If you would like to see your writing in the next edition of the magazine, get a better idea of the work we publish by picking up a copy. Subscribers get three print issues delivered to their door plus complete digital access to every issue we’ve ever published for just £10. Take advantage by heading to our subscribe page.

Thanks to high demand, our latest issue is just twenty copies away from going out of print. Subscribe today to ensure you get hold of yours.

Despite ordering more copies than ever, we’ve now rattled through our entire supply of Issue 14, The Curious Issue, in just three months. Only twenty copies remain, which have now been removed from our single issues page and are available exclusively to new subscribers. So, if you would like to get your hands on a copy before they disappear altogether, subscribe from just £10 today.

Alternatively, if you would like to read our latest issue on a medium other than paper, find every issue we’ve ever published nestled neatly inside the Popshot app, supplied by our friends over at Exact Editions.

With just a handful of our limited edition A2 Giclée prints left, we’re now making them available for less than half price. Pick up yours from £16.

A couple of years ago, we launched The Print Shop, taking a small selection of six of the most powerful images we had featured in the magazine and making them available in large format limited editions of 150. Now, with the arrival of 2016 and just a handful of the prints left, we’re cutting the price of them from £45 to £16 to make way for a new print-related venture — which we’ll go into more detail on soon.

So, if you fancy adorning your walls with a beautiful Giclée print that weighs in at 550mm x 675mm, sunk into the finest Folex Fine Art archival papers from talented illustrators such as Sam Green, Mydeadpony, Tom Hovey, Devin McGrath, Esra Røise and City Abyss, head over to The Print Shop to get hold of yours.

With the arrival of 2016, there are just eighteen days left to submit your poems and short stories to our next issue on the theme of ‘Adventure’.

Until January 20th we’ll be accepting poems of up to 25 lines and short stories of up to 2,500 words that relate to the theme of ‘Adventure’. So, if you want to kick off the new year by getting your writing published, illustrated and read by thousands of people all over the globe, make sure it’s polished up and in with us before the deadline passes. As long as you retain full publishing rights to the work, writing can have been published before and we’re also open to simultaneous submissions.

If you’ve already sent in your submission for this issue, fear not, your writing is already under consideration. If not, make sure that you acquaint yourself with the submissions guidelines at our submit page and we’ll look forward to reading your literary masterpieces.

With 2015 drawing to a close, we reflect on the last twelve months and say a huge thank you to our readers and subscribers for their tremendous support.

Strangely, very few magazines actively talk about just how important their readers and subscribers are to them. It might be mentioned in an issue’s opening editorial every once in a while but that’s usually the extent of it. However, with a new year approaching and reflection mode setting in, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank every single person who has supported Popshot over the last twelve months; whether by becoming one of our adored subscribers, picking up a copy in a bookshop, ordering a copy online, submitting to us, following us on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest, downloading our app, writing about us or talking about the magazine via good old fashioned word of mouth. Without this network, Popshot would quickly cease to exist. With no funding and no advertising, it’s our readership that enables us to continue publishing the magazine and building a platform that gets new fiction, poetry and illustration out into the wider world. And for that, we’re exceedingly grateful.

2015 has seen Popshot rise to a new height. Our thirteenth issue, The Outsider Issue, launched back in April and sold out in less than four months, prompting us to re-release it in a limited edition supplement-style format a few weeks later. Only 25 copies remain. Thanks to an increase in new subscribers over the last few months, The Curious Issuelooks set to follow a similar path with less than a hundred copies left. We overhauled our website after a year of talking about it, making it mobile/tablet friendly and allowing us to bring some of the poems and short stories from our print editions into the digital sphere. Over the next twelve months we hope to build on it by publishing more writing from other publishers too. Most importantly, we had the pleasure of publishing some of our favourite pieces of writing yet from some very promising literary talent and working with a selection of illustration’s finest — some of whom are represented in the image above.

As 2016 rolls into view, there are exciting plans afoot. We’re looking to bring out the magazine more often and, with some brand involvement, will try to turn our dream of properly paying our contributors into a reality. Here’s to a wonderful new year and once more, a massive thank you to our readers and subscribers. If you’d like to join them, subscribe from just £10 a year here.

On the lookout for a gift for that literature-loving friend? Wrap up the search with a copy of Popshot for £6 or a three-issue subscription for £10.

With just two weeks left before the presents have to be wrapped and under the tree, the world has now fallen into a festive headlock. It even inspired us to create our first ever stop motion animation which you can see above. It’s only 12 seconds long but we had a lot of fun making it.

So if, like us, you’ve got a few more things to get before you can call it a day on the Christmas shopping, why not give the gift of illustrated literature? You can pick up a single copy from £6 plus postage or subscribe from £10 and get The Curious Issue as the initial copy (or any back issue of your choice), followed by our next two issues over the coming year plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published.

We can also send the first copy to you so that you can gift it in person. Just drop us an email straight after subscribing and we’ll set it up for you.

Our last posting dates for New Zealand and Australia are today; the USA, Canada and Europe are on December 15th; and copies within the UK will be dispatched all the way up until December 21st.

We are now accepting short fiction and poetry submissions for our forthcoming issue on the theme of ‘Adventure’.

After the resounding success of our latest issue (which is looking likely to become our bestselling one of all time) we’re even more excited than usual to announce that literary submissions for our forthcoming issue are officially open.

Through The Curious Issue and The Outsider Issue, our last two editions have focused in on the introverted and peculiar sides of humankind. For this issue however, we’re turning the tables and looking to explore the extroverts, the travellers and the adventurers to create a collection of short stories, poems and illustrations that will roar with energy and spirit.

For the full submission guidelines, head to our submit page and make sure that you send in your short fiction or poetry long before the deadline of January 20th. If you haven’t already, we would also recommend reading last week’s article by our editor which shines a light on what kind of writing we’ll be looking out for.

With Christmas Day less than a month away, a copy of Popshot could be the perfect gift for the quintessential lover of literature.

Ah, the festive frenzy that is the month before Christmas. That wonderful time of year where you’re bombarded from all angles by people reminding you that the big day is approaching on the off-chance that you hadn’t already noticed. We would claim to be above this sort of behaviour but as the Christmas bandwagon goes trundling past, we feel it would be churlish not to hop on it.

So if you’re organised enough to already be thinking about it and have a friend or family member who’s partial to a spot of illustrated short fiction and poetry, a copy of Popshot might be right up their street.

You can pick up a single copy from £6 plus postage or subscribe from £10 a year and get our latest issue as the initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published. If you’d like us to send the first copy to you so that you can gift it in person, just drop an email to subscriptions@popshotpopshot.com straight after subscribing and we’ll set it up for you.

To ensure that it arrives in time, our last posting dates for New Zealand and Australia are on December 10th; the USA, Canada and Europe are on December 15th; and copies within the UK will be dispatched all the way up until December 21st. Now, we’re off to go and cry at the John Lewis advert…again.

In advance of submissions opening for our fifteenth issue, our editor shines a light on what kind of writing we’ll be looking out for.

If you’ve never read the What Editors Want article on The Review Review, I can’t stress enough what a valuable piece of writing it is. It’s not a quick read but it provides some of the most measured and sage advice for writers submitting their work to literary magazines that I’ve ever read. What it understandably isn’t able to do is be more specific about the writing that each magazine is looking for — so with submissions for our fifteenth issue just around the corner, I thought I’d give a brief insight here.

When it comes to fiction, Popshot has built a reputation for publishing stories about the weird, the wonderful and the slightly macabre. In our latest issue the most popular story, entitled The Basement, told the tale of two mysterious aunts who raise their orphaned nieces whilst maintaining a fascinating secret that the nieces go on to inherit. In our thirteenth issue it was The Men Of Burr, the wartime story of a social outcast who through a unique skill becomes a local hero. In our eleventh issue it was The Memory Jar, a heart-rending short that drops us into the lives of a devoted couple who grow increasingly dependent on their vast collection of memory jars.

Why did we choose these stories and what is it about them that our readers have connected to? Firstly, they’re written clearly and aren’t fussy, allowing the reader to lose themselves in the story rather than try to navigate what’s going on. Arguably, the best stories are written in such a way that we forget a writer has even written them. Secondly, they capture your attention from the first line, providing enough detail to instantly understand the scene but not so much that the reader’s curiosity is met. If the first line makes you want to read the second and the second line makes you want to read the third, that’s where we stumble across the hallowed ground of ‘unputdownable’. Thirdly, we love a twist, an unexpected turn or something that will stir the emotion. If a story brings out our gooseflesh, we put it in the magazine. Those stories that hit us in the viscera — the ones that reallymake us feel something — are the ones we look to publish. Get out our gooseflesh and you’ll go straight onto the shortlist.

What we look for in poetry is much the same as with fiction — clear writing, being hooked from the first line, being emotionally stirred — but it’s much more a question of beauty. Not necessarily in terms of its subject matter but in the way it’s composed; the beauty in the language that’s been chosen and the ability to ensure that each word is weighed, measured and found to say much more than just the word itself. It was Samuel Taylor Coleridge who said that poetry is “the best words in the best order” and as hard as we’ve tried, it’s difficult to find a definition much more punchy than that. Perhaps the finest recent example of a poem that ticked every box we had was Aki Schilz’s piece If I Could Undo Any Mistake It Would Be You which was published in our twelfth issue.

Ultimately, if you would love to see your writing published and illustrated in Popshot, there’s no better way of understanding the work that we put in the magazine than by reading the magazine itself. We say it a lot but there’s a remarkable correlation between those that have read Popshot and those whose poetry and short fiction ends up being published in its pages. In the last four issues of the magazine, 50-70% of our contributors have either been print subscribers, digital subscribers or have read a copy of the magazine before. So, if you would like to increase your chances of getting in — whilst supporting Popshot at the same time — pick up a single copy from £6 plus postage or subscribe from £10 a year and get our latest issue as the initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year plus free access to our digital edition which contains every issue we’ve ever published.

If you’re interested in submitting, head to our submit page to find out what to do next. Here’s to reading some of the finest new writing yet.

— Jacob Denno, Editor

After years in the making, a new film about today’s UK illustration and graphic arts scene, entitled Made You Look, is now hitting screens.

We first heard about Made You Look a year ago when its creators were seeking funding on Kickstarter to help finish off the film. Despite not quite hitting their £30k target, the funding was found elsewhere and the film has been screening for the last few months in the lead up to its general release.

Focusing in on the UK illustration and graphic arts scene, Made You Look aims to create a snapshot of creativity in the digital age, discussing the triumphs and trials that accompany life in the commercial arts and providing a rare behind-the-scenes peek into the work of some of the UK’s top creative talent. Among those interviewed in the film are Anthony Burrill, Kate Moross, Will Hudson (It’s Nice That), Sam Arthur (Nobrow) and former Popshot contributors, Spencer Wilson and Ben The Illustrator.

You can watch the trailer for Made You Look above and if you’d like to find out more about the film, including extra interviews and clips, head to its dedicated website for more details.

Our brand new issue, exploring the theme of ‘Curious’, is fresh off the press and available to buy as a single issue or through a subscription.

Containing a compelling selection of short stories, poems and illustrations that put oddity and curiosity at their heart, The Curious Issue has now arrived and is on its way to doormats and bookshop shelves as we speak.

Led by some of the finest storytellers and poets, and accompanied by a selection of beautiful illustrations, we’ll travel to the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean; to the workshop of a fraudulent creator of abnormalities; and to the rowing boats of rosy-blooded explorers. We’ll happen across nighttime gardeners and dusty bookshop owners, discover a giant machine capable of attaining the answers to all of life’s questions, watch as dodos are reassembled, and find ourselves caught in a loop where generation after generation lives out a very similar life.

Browse through a few images below and have a flick through a few spreads here. If you’d like to get your hands on a copy, you can either buy a single issue for £6 + p&p or subscribe for £10 a year and get The Curious Issue as your initial copy, followed by our next two issues over the coming year, plus free access to our digital editionwhich contains every issue we’ve ever published.

Catch a sneak preview of the cover of our new issue, The Curious Issue, now available to pre-order and launching on October 1st.

After sending our fourteenth issue off to print this morning, we’re delighted to unveil its cover artwork, illustrated by Berlin-based illustration extraordinaire, Jörn Kaspuhl. In the lead up to its release in just over two weeks’ time, we’ll also be revealing a few flashes of the writings and illustrations from inside the magazine over on our Facebook and Instagram.

The new issue can be pre-ordered at our single issues page for £6 + p&p, or you can subscribe from £10 and receive Issue 13 (in its limited edition, supplement-style format), Issue 14 and Issue 15 over the coming year, plus complete access to the digital edition of Popshot, which contains every issue we’ve ever published in electronic form. That’s how much we love subscribers.

After our current issue abruptly sold out last month, we’ve now re-released it in a limited edition supplement-style format of just 200 copies.

The freshly published edition is packed with the same great illustrated short fiction and poetry that graced our thirteenth issue, but comes in a slimmer, supplement-style format which has allowed us to drop the price to a mere £3.50 — almost half the price of a normal copy of Popshot.

This edition is available to order exclusively through our website, and as long as stocks last, new subscribers will receive it as their initial copy when they take out a subscription to Popshot. A yearly subscription costs just £10 and also includes Issue 14 and 15, plus complete access to all of our back issues courtesy of the digital edition.

With just 200 copies available, we’re not expecting them to hang around for very long so if you would like to get your hands on one, either subscribe or order a copy at our issues page.

Our website has been given an extensive overhaul, making it mobile/tablet friendly, and now able to house content from various issues of the magazine.

After weeks and weeks of bashing around bits of code and agonising over the spacing between headings and subheadings, we are proud to now unveil our brand spanking new website. In the two years since we last gave it a refresh, the world of web design has progressed at a rate of knots, meaning our previously up to date website was starting to look rather tired.

As well as an updated look and feel that should (hopefully) work across all devices, our new online home also allows us to start publishing more online content. With nine of our thirteen issues now out of print — and The Time Issue set to join them very soon — there’s a vast array of Popshot-published short fiction and poetry that is subsequently harder to track down. As a result, we’ll be beginning to add it to the new site from now on. If you want to be kept up to date, sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of this page or follow us on Facebook. In the meantime, enjoy taking a look around and if you notice any issues with the site, please do let us know by dropping an email to hello@popshotpopshot.com.

Short fiction and poetry submissions for our ‘Curious’ issue close in twenty days’ time. Send in your literary triumphs before July 20th.

With the arrival of July, we are less than three weeks away from literary submissions deadline day for our 14th issue — exploring the theme of ‘Curious’. As ever, we’re keen to make this the best issue we’ve made yet, so if you have a piece of writing already penned, or half a piece forming in your head, please make sure to send it in before July 20th at the very latest.

Since this issue is all about the curious, we’re interested in reading work that manages to tread the line between the strange, peculiar, offbeat and unexpected, whilst not going so far that it’s difficult for our readers to relate to.

If you’ve already submitted your poetry or short fiction, fear not, your writing is already under consideration. For those of you who haven’t, make sure that you acquaint yourself with the submissions guidelines at our submit page.

Working with the fledgling digital bookstore, 0s&1s, we’ve now made the last four issues of Popshot available in PDF form.

The notion of selling magazines and books in a digital format is one that’s been intriguing us ever since it became more widely accepted — largely thanks to the iPad, the iPhone and the Kindle. Although Popshot still shifts far more printed magazines than digital ones, our digital edition has opened doors to readers in parts of the world that we might struggle to reach in physical terms. However, up until now, this has exclusively meant readers with tablets or smartphones.

Now, thanks to the fledgling digital bookstore, 0s&1s, we’ve made Popshot available in PDF format, which means you don’t have to own a smartphone or tablet in order to read our last few issues on a screen. That’s inverted progress…

Head to the dedicated Popshot page at the 0s&1s website to find out more.

We are now open for short fiction and poetry submissions for our forthcoming fourteenth issue, on the theme of ‘Curious’.

Despite its questionable reputation for killing cats, curiosity is one of the finest traits of humankind. It was the thing that sent man to the moon, Christopher Columbus to the New World and Alice down the rabbit hole. Curiosity breeds exploration, invention and, on a fairly regular basis, some form of destruction. It is the tentative footstep before the leap into the unknown, and as a result, could be argued to be one of the most intriguing words in the English language.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to name it as the theme for our forthcoming fourteenth issue of Popshot, The Curious Issue, which as of today, is now open for literary submissions.

If you would like the opportunity to have your short fiction or poetry published and illustrated in the next issue of the magazine, find out the full submissions guidelines at our submit page — and make sure that you send your work in long before the deadline of July 20th.

In advance of literary submissions opening in one week’s time, we’re offering half price copies of Popshot to potential contributors.

We’ve mentioned before the remarkable correlation between those people that have read Popshot and those people whose poetry and short fiction ends up being published in its pages. In our most recent Outsider-themed issue, three quarters of the writers that got in were either subscribers or had bought a copy of Popshot before. As a result, the more people that read it, the more fitting the submissions that we receive for each issue become. And as a result of that, the quality of the writing that we publish goes up.

So, with submissions for our fourteenth issue set to open in just one week’s time, we’re keen to get the magazine into the hands of as many potential contributors as we can by making all of our available issues half price until June 1st. Take advantage of the offer by heading to our single issues page now.

The Roundhouse’s festival of spoken word, storytelling and live performance has now kicked off and will continue for the next two weeks.

Kicking into life a couple of days ago, The Last Word is a festival of spoken word, storytelling and live performance that, for the next couple of weeks, will be taking over the much-venerated performing arts venue, The Roundhouse. Some of the UK’s finest literary and lyrical performers will be taking to the stage, including Luke Wright, John Hegley, Talia Randall, Inua Ellams, Mark Grist and Deanna Rodger to name just a few. To find out the full line-up and to book your tickets to one or more of the many events, head here.

Bursting at the seams with a selection of short stories and poems that bring focus to those who live on the fringes of normality, Issue 13 is out today.

We’re very pleased to announce that our thirteenth issue, which celebrates the madmen, the oddballs, the observers and the outsiders, is officially out today. Bursting at the seams with a selection of short stories and poems that bring focus to those who live on the fringes of normality, the Outsider issue is the veritable feast of oddity that it should be.

If you would like to get your hands on a copy, you can take a flick through a few of the pages here, before ordering the real thing at our single issues page, or subscribing from just £10. All pre-orders and subscriber’s copies were posted out this morning and will be arriving on doormats around the globe in the coming weeks.

Following the unveiling of the cover of Issue 13 of Popshot, you can now view, in digital form, a selection of spreads from The Outsider Issue.

Last week, we unveiled the cover of the latest issue of Popshot to herald the imminent arrival of our thirteenth edition. In advance of its launch in a week’s time, we’re now releasing a selection of spreads from the issue that can be viewed immediately, in digital form, by heading to this very page.

Take a flick through, and to read every poem and short story from our ‘Outsider’ issue, pre-order a copy from our single issues page.

We’re delighted to release the cover artwork for our forthcoming thirteenth issue, composed by illustration’s next big thing, Matt Harrison Clough.

With our thirteenth issue of Popshot, addressing the theme of ‘Outsider’, being sent to print this morning, we’re very excited to now unveil the cover artwork for it. Composed by illustration’s next big thing, Matt Harrison Clough, it provides the perfect analogy for what this issue is all about. We’ll be releasing a few spreads from the new issue within the next week, with an expected launch date of April 1st.

To get hold of your copy long before it hits the bookshops, you can pre-order Issue 13 through our single issues page or subscribe to Popshot from just £10 a year.

As part of its #travelbetterlondon campaign, Transport For London has opened up a poetry competition looking for poems to grace its future posters.

If you travel on the London Underground relatively often, you’ll already be well aware of the longstanding relationship between poetry and TFL. You’ll also probably be familiar with the format of their illustrated poetry posters, which have been going strong since 2013 with the help of French illustrator, Mcbess, and look a bit like the one above.

Now, as part of its #travelbetterlondon campaign, TFL is looking for poems that could grace future posters via its poetry competition. The purpose of the competition is to ask people to submit their own poems about one inconsiderate travel habit they have witnessed on public transport, with the winner’s work made up into a poster featuring the verse accompanied by their likeness in the accompanying artwork. To find out more about how to enter, head to the dedicated competition page at the #travelbetterlondon website, and make sure you send in your ditty before March 1st.

A year ago we launched the digital edition of Popshot. Now, with the help of Exact Editions, we’re giving it away to our print subscribers for free.

As some of you may remember, we launched the digital edition of Popshot a little over a year ago, meaning that from Portsmouth to Prague to Panama City, anyone in the world could be reading Popshot on their tablet, phone, or online, within seconds. Since then, it’s become a resounding success and currently accounts for a quarter of our total subscribers.

Now, with the help of our friends over at Exact Editions, we’re making the digital edition available to all of our print subscribers for free. With a number of subscribers asking how they could read some of the sold out back issues of Popshot, we felt it was important to make all of those issues, and all future ones, available in digital form to our most loyal supporters.

Subsequently, anyone who now subscribes to Popshot from just £10 will not only get three print issues delivered direct to their door, they’ll also receive digital access to every issue we’ve ever published. Become a subscriber by heading to our subscribe page or if you already are, drop an email to subscriptions@popshotpopshot.com to find out how to activate your digital subscription.

Our twelfth glorious issue, packed full of illustrated short stories and poems that explore the theme of ‘Time’, is out now.

Coinciding rather nicely with National Poetry Day (which is today in case you’ve forgotten) we’re delighted to announce that the new issue of Popshot is out now. 25 pieces of writing grace this beautifully broad edition, packed full of illustrated short stories and poems that explore our perception of, and relationship with, time, and take us to some weird and wonderful places in the process. If you want to have a squinted look through a few pages from the new issue, you can do so here.

All pre-orders and subscriber’s copies have been posted out and will be arriving on doormats around the globe in the coming days. If you want to get your hands on your own crayon-scented copy, subscribe from just £10 and receive Time as the initial issue of your subscription, or order a single issue from £6 + p&p. As we may have just demonstrated, it seems you can put a price on loyalty. Those who are more digitally minded can read the new issue on their smartphone or tablet by downloading the Popshot app.

To herald the impending arrival of Issue 12 in two weeks’ time, we can now reveal its cover artwork, illustrated by the masterful Sam Pash.

After what feels like (and probably is) a small age, the collected writings and illustrations of our twelfth issue – The Time Issue – have gone to print and are now being stamped into some of the finest offset paper, somewhere in Wales. To mark the moment, it gives us great pleasure to reveal the cover, illustrated by Popshot favourite, Sam Pash. If ever there was a cover of Popshot that instantly captured the mood of an entire issue, this would be it; calm, contemplative, and slightly nostalgic – our forthcoming issue in a nutshell.

To celebrate, the new issue is now available to pre-order for a fiver, with pre-orders open until October 1st when the price will go back up to the usual cover price of £6. Or you can subscribe for a tenner, and get this issue and the next couple after that delivered to your doormat without even having to think about it. Thanks to our partnership with magazine kings, Newsstand, we’ve also been able to drop the price of overseas postage – a saving that has now been passed on to our readers. Further details of the new issue to follow in the lead up to launch day.

Stand-up comedian cum novelist, Mark Watson, has a new book out entitled Hotel Alpha which manages to continue after it’s finished.

Most people who know of Mark Watson will probably be more familiar with his work as a stand-up comedian than as a novelist. However, with five novels now to his name, the balance may be shifting. His latest book, entitled Hotel Alpha, is the story of London’s most extraordinary hotel, run by a man called Howard, which has been built on a series of secrets and dreams. Whilst the book has an excellent plot, the real twist comes when you finish it.

Alongside the novel, Mark has written 100 accompanying stories that can be found online – some the length of a tweet, others a paragraph, others a thousand words or more. The stories can be read in any order and shine an alternative light on the plot, bringing to life additional scenes, exposing secrets and hidden links, and giving voice to some of the thousands of minor characters. It’s a fantastic concept which plays with the idea of the traditional novel, pulling into question whether a book actually finishes when the last page has been read, and blending together the strengths of both print and online.

If you want to get a taste of what Mark calls an ‘encyclopaedic novel’, pick up a copy over at Picador’s website then head to the Hotel Alpha Stories website as soon as you’ve finished it to read on.