Table Salt Press is an independent lit mag for honest writing, strange ideas, and everything in between—stories you can pass around the table, and linger long after the plates have been cleared.

Table Salt Press was created to recapture the feeling of sharing stories around the kitchen table. 

We're drawn to the stories people carry around with them—the ones told at family dinners, scrawled in the margins of a journal, or held onto for years before finally being written down. Poetry, personal essays, fiction, micro/flash, art, recipes, photography, the unclassifiable Give us the story your grandmother tells wrong every time, the essay you almost didn't send because that would make it real, the poem that started as a grocery list. We're not chasing polish. We're chasing the thing that makes us put our fork down and listen.

We do our best to keep response times fast, submissions are always free, and if you're looking for a place to sit, there's always room at our table. If you found your way here, pull up a chair.



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Table Salt Press

For our inaugural issue, <i>Homesick</i>, we’re looking for flash fiction that packs an emotional punch in a small space. We want quick, potent snapshots of place, memory, and the longing for home—stories that hit fast, burn bright, and leave a mark long after the last line.<div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div>Snapshots and vignettes. A single scene, a brief moment in time, a pivotal interaction that feels full and complete despite its brevity.</div><div><br></div><div>Imagery that grounds us instantly—Sunday gravy (or sauce) in your nonna's kitchen, summer nights on your front porch, or a fleeting moment between two lives transitioning.</div><div><br></div><div>We want stories that don't waste a single word. If it lingers long after the last line, pass it our way.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>We are particularly interested in seeing stories from Romani, Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Palestinian voices.</i></b></div>

Flash (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

For our inaugural issue, <i>Homesick</i>, we’re looking for rich, fully realized short stories that explore place, memory, identity, and the tender ache of home. Give us space to get lost in your world. Send us stories about where you’re from, where you’ve been, or what you carry with you when you leave.<div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div>Places that feel alive—kitchens full of noise, dying small towns, ancestral homes, transit hubs, or landscapes carrying history across generations.</div><div><br></div><div>Complex stories about family ties, displacement, longing, returning home (or realizing you can never go back).</div><div><br></div><div>Writing shaped by heritage, oral traditions, superstition, or living between two worlds (with special interest in Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Romani perspectives).</div><div><br></div><div>Whether your story is rooted in simple everyday realism or leans into surrealism, we want fiction with depth and character.</div><div><br></div><div>Bring your best story to the table—we can't wait to read it.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>We are particularly interested in seeing stories from Romani, Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Palestinian voices.</i></b></div>

Short Fiction (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

For our inaugural issue, <i>Homesick</i>, we’re looking for full-length creative nonfiction, journalism, cultural criticism, hot takes and commentary, and personal essays that explore place, identity, and what we carry with us.<div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div>Respectful takes on regional identity, gentrification, modern nostalgia, local politics, media tropes, or disappearing communities.</div><div><br></div><div>In-depth feature writing, local histories, mini-profiles, or boots-on-the-ground reporting anchored in a specific landscape or subculture.</div><div><br></div><div>Deep dives into family lineage, inherited habits, grief, or living between different worlds—especially perspectives tied to regional, working-class, or diaspora backgrounds.</div><div><br></div><div>Writing that approaches nostalgia with clear eyes—examining the flaws, beauty, and messy realities of where you come from without sanding down the edges.</div><div><br></div><div>Give us your facts, your arguments, and your stories. If it needs room to unpack and make its point, pull up a chair and let it settle on the page.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>We are particularly interested in seeing stories from Romani, Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Palestinian voices.</i></b></div>

Short Nonfiction + Essays (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

For our inaugural issues, <i>Homesick</i>, we want flash essays and true snapshots that get straight to the heart of where you come from, where you're going, and what you've lost—or gained—along the way. We love personal, honest writing that turns a tiny detail of real life into something bigger.<br><div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div>Family histories, inherited habits, strange hometown traditions, or the exact moment a place stopped feeling like home.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Heritage, family recipes, oral histories, or the traditions that tied you to a place (or pushed you away).</div><div><br></div><div>A turning point, the day you went back, or the strange feeling of being a ghost in your own hometown.</div><div><br></div><div>Essays built around a single artifact—a hand-me-down, an old photograph, a specific kitchen, or a diner off the highway.</div><div><br></div><div>If it’s honest, real, and leaves an impression, pull up a chair and pass it our way.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>We are particularly interested in seeing stories from Romani, Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Palestinian voices.</i></b></div>

Flash: Nonfiction + Essays (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

For our inaugural issues, <i>Homesick</i>, send us your absolute shortest nonfiction—whether that’s micro-journalism, cultural critique, short commentary, miniature reviews, or personal vignettes. <br><div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div>Bite-sized critiques of hometown gentrification, regional media tropes, disappearing local spaces, or modern nostalgia traps.</div><div><br></div><div>Micro-essays built around a single object—a hand-written recipe card, a late-nonno's coat, or a piece of inheritance you can't bring yourself to give away.</div><div><br></div><div>Real, observed snippets of life—local news, street-level observations, or mini-profiles of a person or place.</div><div><br></div><div>True snapshots of a hometown, a kitchen, or a person you miss, without sanding off the rough edges of how it actually was.</div><div><br></div><div>Bold hot takes, cultural commentary, or short conversations about heritage, belonging, or what "home" even means today.</div><div><br></div><div>If you can argue a point, report a scene, or analyze a trend in under 175 words, send it down our way.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>We are particularly interested in seeing stories from Romani, Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Palestinian voices.</i></b></div>

Micro: Nonfiction + Essays (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

For our inaugural issue, <i>Homesick,</i> send us your absolute shortest fiction—tiny narratives that leave a big dent.<div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div>An argument in a driveway, a strange night in a hometown, or a single moment of realization before someone packs a bag.</div><div><br></div><div>Stories steeped in local folklore, regional quirks, or the eerie feeling of a landscape that knows too much about you.</div><div><br></div><div>That bittersweet ache for a time, person, or place that might not even exist anymore—or maybe never existed at all.</div><div><br></div><div>If you can capture the whole weight of home in under 175 words, pass it on down.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>We are particularly interested in seeing stories from Romani, Appalachian, Ukrainian, and Palestinian voices.</i></b></div>

Micro Fiction (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

For our inaugural issue, <i>Homesick</i>, we’re looking for poetry with grit and texture. We want poems that dig into the messy place where reality came from, poems that feel like a worn recipe card or a faded photograph. We're suckers for poetic work that feels like a confession.<div><br></div><div>We're open to micro, flash, and full-length poems as well as other poetic work. No minimum word count.<br><div><br></div><div>What we'd love to see:</div><div><br></div><div> Text that excavates something new from something old, or vice versa. We want meaning carved out of old letters, documents, newspapers, family archives, or even field guides.</div><div><br></div><div>Micro-poems that pack a punch in a single sentence. Single-frame moments that leave you wrecked for weeks. Notes scribbled in the margins of your high school notebook, a scrawled receipt, or a face drawn on foggy glass.</div><div><br></div><div>Writing that sits right on the wire between poetry and personal story. Essayistic scope with poetic language. Teach us something new in an unconventional way. Pieces that grapple with heritage, nostalgia, and home as identity through rhythm and fragmentation.</div><div><br></div><div>If this sounds like a place for you, pull up a chair. There's always room at our table.</div></div>

Poetry (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

THE GOOD KIDS GUIDE TO BAD THINGS is a middle-grade horror mini mag built around the rules kids are told to follow—and what happens when those rules are broken.<div><br></div><div>One rule. One story. No combining.</div><div><br></div><div>If your chosen rule has a theme attached to it, that theme is REQUIRED.</div><div><br></div><div>Good Kid Rules:</div><div><br></div><div>🪟 <b>Don’t sleep with the window open</b></div><div><br></div><div>🍎<b> Don’t accept food from strangers</b></div><div><br></div><div>⏱️ <b>Don’t stay up past bedtime</b></div><div><br></div><div>🚪 <b>Don’t slam the door</b></div><div><br></div><div>🛏️ <b>Don’t look under the bed</b></div><div><br></div><div>🧊 <b>Don’t leave the fridge open</b></div><div><br></div><div>🤐 <b>Don’t talk back</b></div><div><br></div><div>📖 <b>Don’t tell stories</b></div><div><br></div><div>🎪 <b>Don’t wander off</b></div><div><i>theme: circus / carnival horror</i></div><div><br></div><div>😰<b> Don’t make faces at the table</b></div><div><i>theme: body horror</i></div><div><br></div><div>🪞 <b>Don’t look in the mirror too long</b></div><div><i>theme: bubblegum / coquette horror</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div><i>🍽️ </i><b>Don’t play with your food</b></div><div><i>theme: creature feature</i></div><div><br></div><div>SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS</div><div><br></div><div>One Rule. One Submission.</div><div><br></div><div>500–800 words maximum per piece.</div><div><br></div><div>Format: Flash Fiction + Visual Submissions.</div><div><i>visual submissions may submit up to 3 pieces.</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>We're looking for stories that embrace the strange, creepy, and unsettling—folklore, retro/vintage atmosphere, bubblegum, gothic, body horror, and more.</div>

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Flash (subs open for Issue No. 1!)

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