Published 19 December 201911 March 2020 · Fiction / Activities / callout Your summer writing challenge Editorial team Hope you didn’t have any plans this summer, because we need you to clear your schedule for our first special fiction edition of 2020. About special edition Overland is seeking fiction submissions for a special online fiction edition edited by Allan Drew. We are looking for stories with urgency, a clear reason for being told – stories that adhere to that idea that the impulse behind all fiction is “hey, you gotta hear this”. Allan is especially interested in stories where the characters are put under pressure in some way, and we get the chance to see what they’re made of. About the guest editor Allan Drew teaches Creative Writing and Communications at Massey University. You can find him online at www.allan-drew.com. Submission details Submissions close 31 January 2020. The special issue will be available online in March. Stories can run from flash fiction to longer short stories, but the maximum word length for submissions is 4000 words. Kindly note: writers may submit no more than two stories for consideration for this special issue. Submit your story as: Current Overland subscriber? Click here to submit your story. Not yet an Overland subscriber? Click here to submit your story. (Remember, you can support Overland by becoming a subscriber.) Read one of our previous fiction issues Anna Spargo-Ryan – Our Hour Mandy Beaumont and Craig Bolland – The Idea of Women issue Ben Walter – Anti-/dis-/un-Australian fiction issue Rachel Hennessy Khalid Warsame Kate Goldsworthy Oliver Driscoll SJ Finn Emily Laidlaw Miranda Camboni Editorial team More by Editorial team › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 22 November 202422 November 2024 · Fiction A map of underneath Madeleine Rebbechi They had been tangled together like kelp from the age of fourteen: sunburned, electric Meg and her sidekick Ruth the dreamer, up to all manner of sinister things. So said their parents; so their teachers reported when the two girls were found down at the estuary during a school excursion, whispering to something scaly wriggling in the reeds. 21 November 202421 November 2024 · Fiction Whack-a-mole Sheila Ngọc Phạm We sit in silence a few more moments as there is no need to talk further; it is the right place to end. There is more I want to know but we had revisited enough of the horror for one day. As I stood up to thank Bác Dzũng for sharing his story, I wished I could tell him how I finally understood that Father’s prophecy would never be fulfilled.