samfiftyfour

Loose Criteria

No. of episodes

13

Latest episode

2025-05-15

Where can you listen?

What is a poem? When does a poem become an essay, or an essay a poem? When is it effective or necessary for a piece of writing to break the rules; of form, of grammar, of genre? Regardless of what it is, what makes it good?


These questions are why we keep our submission guidelines loose. As editors of an independent journal, we keep our minds open. We want to leave room for writing that transgresses boundaries. We want to be surprised. We never know where the right piece will come from, or what it will say. More than any insistence on form, we want work that obscures the line between word and embodiment–that reaches into us and changes us from within.


We're the editors of the samfiftyfour literary journal. Welcome to our podcast. Here we take an editor's eye to literary craft, curation, and publishing. We discuss works we've published, works that influenced us, and more. We break down pieces of writing and allow them to break us down too. It's a freeform conversation with loose criteria.

Find us at samfiftyfour.com or on instagram @samfiftyfour

Submissions are always open