My Secret Fantasy to Editor-In-Chief a Butt-Jokes Literary Magazine

lighting one's farts is a universal moment in every coming-of-age story, let's celebrate its many variations

For a while now, but I’ve imagined a future where I publish and edit a litmag.

Inspired by

Taco Bell Quarterly

’s “just go for it” ethos and success built on what seems to be seizing an incredibly attention catching title and LOL angle, I suspect I could achieve similar success, or at least enjoy trying. Give TBQ a read! It’s fun and literary(ish). Have I submitted something for their next issue? Yes, of course, I have.

I’m convinced I have an angle and theme that would attract both literary superstars like Michael Chabon and up and comers like you. But I need 1) to rethink my tentative title and 2) a lot of money to pay the authors that isn’t skimmed from the authors. (Though, I don’t mind a submission fee that is presumably less than the cost of printing and postage). I’m hoping to either win the lottery or befriend a prince in my upcoming travels to the Persian Gulf. Or maybe my memoirish Walt Darling stories will take off and an agent will reach out and land me a publishing deal and a couple thousand for the rest of the series - then I could be like Dave Eggers starting McSweeneys after A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

What’s my genius idea? What’s the market gap I’ve identified? What’s the title I worry may need to be rethought?

I want to edit and publish a body-humor themed litmag, mostly of short stories, but also sometimes poetry and artist interviews.

Don’t scoff! Butt and fart jokes have a storied history in English Literature. Have you read Shakespeare? Or Think Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale with the hot poker up the pie hole or my absolute favorite line of verse in the entire corpus of English prose poems, from Passus 5 of William Langland’s Piers Plowman, when the personification of Sloth “bent over and blew the bugle of his backside.”

But! Not just fart jokes! Literary stories that include any body humor/horror/humorous horror: Diarrhea. Puke. Blood. Boogers. Mooning. Unwanted boners. Unexpected periods. (Have you watched the recently released adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret yet? It’s amazing. I cried from beginning to end).

No doubt, you have a story you want to tell that’d fit this theme. No doubt you’d subscribe to this illustrious celebration of the impossibility of dignified living as flesh.

BUTTSTUFF as a tentative title has me a little concerned that my prospective readers from the villages will light their pitchforks and march on my office when they discover BUTTSTUFF is a litmag, not a smutmag. Maybe if I add “Quarterly” or “Review,” it’ll remove the ambiguity. Maybe THE BACKEND REVIEW would be better. THE BOTTOMS might make more sense. FLATULENT FICTION feels too on the nose. TOOTS might work.

Sadly, this isn’t a call for submissions. I still need to research logistics and printing and web design and merchandising and contracts AND meet a rich prince. This is just me planting a flag, blowing my bugle, saying, hey! this is my secret fantasy. Please feel free to share your secret fantasy in the comments. Or if you would submit. Or stories by authors you love whom you think would be a good fit for this. Or if you think this dream of mine is crazy.