Ever since I sold my share of ownership in Tahoma Literary Review, in 2017, I’ve missed being part of the publishing community, especially giving good writers opportunities to see their work published. I explored several publishing possibilities over a period of several months, and the one that still appealed the most was the literary journal. I’ve been working with a friend and writer, Zachary Kellian, on this project, and we are proud to present Orca.

We’re a journal based in the Northwest, and in terms of the design and feel of the site and the printed journal, we’ll reflect that aesthetic. But when it comes to the fiction we publish, there’s almost no limit on what we’ll consider. We’re open to traditional stories, speculative, experimental, and more. Since we believe good fiction is primarily an exploration into ideas and the language used to express them, we don’t believe in restrictions on submissions.

We accept fiction only at this time. Will that change? You never know.

Orca is fee free for up to 100 submissions a month. We wanted keep submissions free to all submitters, however, Submittable now charges all new literary journals for their services. For our monthly fee we are allowed 100 free submissions each month, and we’ll pass that along to submitters. After that we’ll charge the standard $3 for another 100 submissions, and if we make a little profit from that, we’ll return it to our published writers. We encourage writers who can afford the fee to support those who can’t by selecting the pay option.

We’re currently finalizing plans, and will open to submissions in February.

– Joe Ponepinto