Ethos
circular is an online journal that publishes short fiction alongside poetry and personal essays.
Taking inspiration from the serial newspaper format, circular is a collective of creatives, publishers and writers based in
Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa New Zealand.
It is our mission to share unusual works that may not fit easily into one category. circular was born from our interests in genre and literary fiction, as we want to provide a platform for different genres to be published in tandem.
We publish themed issues several times a year, so encourage you to sign up to our mailing list or follow us on social media to stay in the loop with submission deadlines. We are always open for individual features, however.
How we review and choose submissions
We know first-hand how intimidating it can be to share your creative work, so we want to reassure you that your work is in safe editorial hands. If you haven’t been published before, go ahead and submit! We want to hear from a range of voices.
Once you’ve submitted, we’ll do our best to keep you in the loop by being transparent about our timelines and providing editorial feedback where we can.
For our themed issues, we anonymise submissions before reviewing them to ensure we’re being fair and restricting bias.
If your work isn’t initially selected, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not what we’re looking for. As a small independent press we are mindful of the size of our issues, and our intention is to curate bodies of work.
We thank you for your patience as we read and respond to your submissions! :)
Meet the editorial team
Madeline McGovern is a publisher, writer and illustrator from
Te Whanganui-a-Tara whose work is often character-driven, exploring themes of transformation and obsession. She enjoys a combination of genre and literary fiction, often dark with a tinge of the supernatural, and especially anything with an emotional journey, strong female characters, books about books, and fantastical worlds.
She’s currently looking for short stories and essays in the realms of magical realism, dark fairytales, portals to other worlds, labyrinthine cities, character-driven plots, folklore, and anything witchy and unusual.
Stephanie Batt is a production editor from Ōtautahi Christchurch, now based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. She is a writer of half-novels and occasional short stories, and can usually be found reading four or five books simultaneously – or none at all.
Stephanie is a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and the literary thriller, and loves to see elements of these transformed into short fiction concepts. She enjoys strong, even unpleasant characterisation, full circle narratives, and punchy, eclectic prose. When it comes to themes, she wants broad and unusual interpretations – basically, go wild!
Brooke Soulsby (she/her) is a publishing professional and writer from Whangārei, now based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is an avid reader of many genres and forms including biblical/mythical fantasy, historical and contemporary fiction, memoir and poetry. Her writing explores themes of grief, ferality, mental health, life cycles and connection. She’s always keen to see pieces that reflect on the profundity of these ideas.
Currently, as ever, she is reading a fluctuating mixture of non-fiction, fiction and poetry. She’d love to see circular sprinkled with more works that blur the line between essay and poem.
