Prometheus Writer's Guidelines

We are looking for well-crafted, creative fiction, non-fiction, and poetry (also B/W photography and artwork) exploring some aspect of dominance and submission, bondage and discipline, fetish, role play, power exchange, or sadomasochism between consenting adults. TES is a pansexual organization so material involving all genders, sexual orientations, and BDSM orientations (dom(me), sub, top, bottom, switch) is welcomed. We receive a majority of heterosexual, dominant male/submissive female (M/f) material so writing featuring other combinations (e.g. F/m, F/f, M/m or bend those genders anyway you want) is especially sought after and will face less competition. Our primary criterion is literary quality.

In fiction, we're looking for stories that emphasize traditional literary values: dramatic structure, character development, a stylish narrative voice, character-driven plotting --not merely a hot BDSM scene, but what the scene means to the characters, how it changes them, why this particular scene matters, what's at stake. Dramatic structure doesn't necessarily require the traditional conflict/resolution but stories should have some underlying dynamic that drives the narrative: some critical situation, problem, struggle, crisis, mystery, something risked, lost, gained -- something going on.

We don't want mere scene reports -- they played, they had sex, they came, the end -- nor do we want stories where the action is mainly vanilla sex with some light bondage and a little "Yes, Master" dialogue. No underage characters, but age play is fine as long as the characters are established as adults. The best way to understand what we're looking for is to read the best published writers in the genre: work like Pat Califia's three story collections, Laura Antoniou's Leatherwomen anthologies, Marketplace books, and her story collection The Catalyst, M. Christian's Dirty Words, Flederfiction by Fledermaus, Black Books Noirotica series, the Sleeping Beauty books by Anne Rice, Alison Tyler, Cecilia Tan, et al.

Non-fiction includes first-person experience, consumer reports, media reviews, how-tos, reports on leather events, and essays. We're looking for the unusual, the radical, the provocative. No dry theory about the difference between a submissive and a slave, please. Non-fiction should be concise, logical, well-organized, and well-argued. Do your research. Make us care about your experiences -- as in fiction, what's important is what the experience meant to you: how did it change you, what did you learn?

Please carefully proofread your submissions. Submissions rife with errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, or grammar will be rejected. The editors have found that writing with mechanical errors is seldom good writing and that good writing seldom has mechanical errors.

We prefer submission via e-mail attachments in MS Word-compatible, rich-text, or plain-text formats, under 3000 words in length if possible. (For plain text, please ensure a blank line between paragraphs so we can find them easily.) Send submissions and requests for further information to the editors at Prometheus@tes.org. Queries on nonfiction are a good idea to determine whether we've already run the type of article/essay you're thinking about. Hard copy submissions, if unavoidable, should be in standard manuscript format and may be mailed to:

The TES Association, PO Box 2783,
Grand Central Station,
New York, NY 10163-2783.

SASE required for return. We reserve the right to edit all submissions. Author retains copyright; submission of material signifies that the author grants one-time publication rights to The TES Association.

Since PROMETHEUS is an all-volunteer effort, we pay in contributor’s copies only. Single copies are available at TES meetings, by mail, and at selected retail outlets.