The passion behind this literary journal comes from a rebellious place in our souls, a place that wants to thrash the hard rules of literature. It also comes from a place of frustration. As writers, we know all too well what it feels like to be rejected and misunderstood. We understand what it feels like to pigeon-hole our work for it to fit into today’s publishing environment, and we also know what it feels like to butcher our darlings until they are darlings no more.

Yes, sometimes we do have to brand our writing, sometimes we do have to target our work to a particular audience. Sometimes we just have to follow the rules to get exposure. And as professional editors as well, we also know that there is a time and a place to do things by the book.

At Vine Leaves is not one of them.

Where can you submit a piece of prose that doesn’t have a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end? Something that manipulates words to create a work of art; that lacks structure, and is something between prose and poetry? Something that could be classed as a flavored breeze of written word? What do you call that? A short story? Flash fiction? Prose poem? … Word vomit???

“No-one’s gunna publish that, love …”

Yes, they are. We are. And it’s called a vignette.

Send us all your word vomit. Because our carpet is huge and full of it … and somehow, it doesn’t stink. In fact, our carpet smells like a nice velvety merlot … 


~Jessica & Dawn