Welcome to 3QR! We are preparing our print anthology, 3QTrue, highlighting nearly 10 years of The Three Quarter Review. Now due out in 2023. Our submissions are closed. In the pandemic Before Times, we considered a select number of new poetry or prose to wrap up our literary experiment in three-quarter true storytelling. The journal site will remain available for reading or teaching purposes. Thanks so much for reading, and stay tuned!

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The reading period for the anthology and online wrap-up issue closed on Feb. 1 2019. (For archival purposes, See prior submission guidelines and other info below).

Meanwhile, check out the winners of our 3QR Contest. The theme: Prose and poetry that pays tribute in some way to the works, style, substance, or interests of Daniel Defoe, who wove reality into the art of fiction, accomplishing literature and essays in the three-quarter true vein. Peruse Defoe’s books, essays, editorials, or articles. The 3QR Daniel Defoe Award advanced the 300th anniversary of the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 2019. Our print edition will follow soon after that tricentennial as well.

For a high-water mark, read the poem we published by American poet Mary Jo Salter, “Crusoe’s Footprint.”  Salter is co-editor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry and a leading figure in New Formalism, among many other literary accomplishments.

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Previous call for contest entries, for more information on the radical Defoe 

Defoe content submissions–Poetry and Prose—in this theme only. Please put the word “Contest” in the subject line and note briefly how your work relates in some way to Defoe’s in your cover letter. (See other guidelines below). There’s no fee for contest entries, though we’ll be setting up a donation channel in support of our print edition: 3QR True, which will include our five issues, as well as the contest winners and honorable mentions for the Daniel Defoe Award.  

As bio.com notes: “English novelist, pamphleteer and journalist Daniel Defoe is best known for his novels, Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. 

Some of his most popular works include The True-Born Englishman, which shed light on racial prejudice in England following attacks on [King William III] for being a foreigner,” and other writings. “Political opponents of Defoe’s repeatedly had him imprisoned for his writing in 1713.”

“Defoe took a new literary path in 1719, around the age of 59, when he published Robinson Crusoe, a fiction novel based on several short essays that he had composed over the years. A handful of novels followed soon after—often with rogues and criminals as lead characters—including Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, Captain Singleton, Journal of the Plague Year and his last major fiction piece, Roxana (1724).”

In the mid-1720s, Defoe returned to writing editorial pieces, focusing on such subjects as morality, politics and the breakdown of social order in England. Some of his later works include “Everybody’s Business is Nobody’s Business.” (1725)

Also, check out our previous themed issue featuring poetry and prose about Science … or Music … or Both. String Theory, anyone? Our writers serenade with science, or illuminate the cosmos with music.

If you sent a submission during a closed reading period (including prior to Oct. 1 of 2018), we were, well, not reading then nor will we go back in time.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Overall we look for engaging prose up to 4,000 words. Up to three poems. Submissions must be at least 75 percent factual. To learn more about our philosophy and aesthetic, peruse our writers’ work and check out the essay “3QR: Free to Pass” in About 3QR.

Short pieces welcome. Prose double-spaced. Submit online to 3qreview@gmail.com. Be sure to attach as a Word or similar doc., and include your email address. If you have not heard from us within four months, assume that we have received your submission and are unable to publish your work at this time. We consider simultaneous submissions; please advise promptly if your piece is accepted elsewhere.

We read and consider all submissions thoughtfully. Know that there is nearly always something in your work that we like or that moves us. Your piece or poem simply might not be a fit for 3QR. We will communicate via email once a piece is accepted. Most of our stories are edited, in collaboration with the writer, for fine-tuning and polish.

The Three Quarter Review publishes annually and holds first, North American rights of work we publish online and in print.

Editor, Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson
3QR: The Three Quarter Review
3qreview@gmail.com

Quotable Thought: The plot–instead of finding human beings more or less cut to its requirements, as they are in the drama– finds them enormous, shadowy and intractable, and three-quarters hidden like an iceberg.

— E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel