There are approximately twelve billion literary magazines, ranging from the shiny and well-paying to the photocopied and stapled. So why did we decide to enter the stramash? After dipping our toes into the indie publishing world, we noticed that the same names kept popping up in every magazine. They were good writers, no doubt, but surely there were new voices out there.

At Fractured West, we do not care who you are. We do not care where else you have published, or how many letters you have after your name, or how many Pushcart nominations you have racked up. We want shit-hot stories, and we don’t care who writes them. We don’t solicit work, and we consider all submissions. The slush pile is our friend.

Luckily for us (and for you, the lovely person looking at our website), we found plenty of incredible work out there. Some names we recognised, most we didn’t. Our only criteria were: does this story make us put down our coffee and re-read it? Do we think about this story when we’re falling asleep? Do these words make us see the world in a new way? All the stories in this magazine made us say yes, yes, and yes.

On this website you will find a few stories selected as a taster of Issue 1. If you like them, please do click the BUY button to get your sticky paws on a real life paper copy of Fractured West. We’re all in this together, and we would be happy to have you join us.