About Geelong Cereal
Geelong Cereal is a free online magazine that showcases local writing and creative arts with an emphasis on serial fiction. Creative work by and about people from the Geelong region is highly sought after, but work from further afield is also enthusiastically welcomed.
Geelong Cereal aims to provide a platform for writers and artists at all levels of their creative journey to publish and share their work, and new writers and artists are encouraged to submit their creative acomplishments.
Currently, the following forms and topics are being published:
Serial Fiction
We publish several different formats of serial fiction and aim to support writers to explore and develop the art of serial fiction in a helpful and non-critical environment.
Writers Writing About Writing
Are you an experienced and / or published writer? Tell us about your journey and help illuminate the path for others! One-off pieces and ongoing columns are welcomed.
Interest Columns
Got a special interest you'd like to write about? We want to hear about it!
Local Club Features
Geelong has a wealth of local clubs. Tell us about yours, and help us build an index of first-hand club experiences. Single pieces and blogs welcome. Social, arts, sports and interest clubs, not the doof doof kind xD
Reviews and Interviews
Gig reviews, performance arts, exhibitions, local artists, local celebrities. Please reach out to discuss any planned reviews or interviews before conducting them to ensure you are aware of legal and ethical requirements for these.
Yes you absolutely can review your high school drama performance etc, but please check the FAQ and submission guidelines for age and content specifications.
Microfiction
Microfiction of up to 300 words will be published each Monday. Check out the submission guidelines for more.
Short fiction
Short fiction is welcomed. Please read the submission guidelines extra carefully before sending short fiction to Geelong Cereal.
Teasers
Are you a local indie writer who wants to publish a teaser from your published or upcoming work? You know what to do :-)
Photography/Art
There is currently a small amount of photography and art published on Geelong Cereal. If an arts coordinator comes along we will expand that and feature more local art, comics, photo-journals etc, as well as encourage collaboration between artists and writers. Again, please read the submission guidelines carefully before submitting art or photography to Geelong Cereal. If you want to be that arts coordinator, please check out the
Volunteers Wanted page.
Poetry
A poet's corner exists here, but so far has not been utilised much. We love and welcome more poetry, but once again, please read the submission guidelines very carefully.
Music
Some great music has been featured in our Listening Room; I eagerly await a volunteer music editor to materialise out of the ether and take this on if it's something people are interested in contributing more to. Volunteers Wanted
If you want to submit your work or have any suggestions or enquires, email us at thegeelongcereal@gmail.com
And remember to subscribe! It's free! You'll get new posts sent directly to your email, and you must be a subscriber to share work, vote in competitions, comment on people's work and to access a lot of the available content.
FAQ
Does Geelong Cereal publish AI generated art?
Geelong Cereal is seeking to collaborate with the local visual art community and will be phasing out the use of any AI generated art on this site. This isn't political, it is about celebrating and supporting local artists and creating a welcoming space for them to hopefully share their work with us!
Are there any age restrictions at Geelong Cereal?
Geelong Cereal publishes work primarily by and for adults and mature teens 16+. We also understand that some younger people may write at a high level and wish to submit work. We suggest this is done with the consultation and guidance of an adult. We will provide content warnings for work containing adult themes, strong language etc but not everything published on the site is suitable for children.
If I submit my work to you, what happens to the intellectual property?
Your work is your work. When you publish something on Geelong Cereal, you keep all the rights to that work. We don't pay you for it, we don't licence it from you, we are only sharing it for you with your permission. You can share it on other sites and with other magazines, there is no exclusivity with Geelong Cereal. Plus, you can remove your work any time you want. Just let us know. And, make sure what you ask us to publish is your work and not someone else's. Original works only, and no AI, please.
Will you provide feedback on my work?
Feedback might be offered to emerging writers depending on how much time we have, but it is by no means guaranteed.
Later in the year we will be introducing a couple of specific publishing categories for newer writers that will involve feedback from experienced writers – but more about that in the coming months!
Will you edit my work?
No. Whatever you submit must be of a readable and publishable standard. This does not mean it must be the world's best writing, we are committed to publishing work by writers at all stages of their creative journey, but it must be coherent, and more or less free from spelling or major grammatical errors. Please check out the posting guidelines page for more information.
What if someone sees my work on Geelong Cereal and wants to contact me about it?
Writers who wish to include a link to their socials etc are welcome to do so. The link must clearly be to your own pages and must only relate to the writing or art you are posting here. We recommend only established/ experienced writers who are used to dealing with trolls and difficult people include links to their socials.
Otherwise, please do not include contact info – if someones contacts us about your work, we will pass their details on to you. We will never give out your contact details if you have not explicitly published them.
If you are under 18 please do not add contact information into any of your posts without prior discussion with us.
Do you make any money out of publishing my work and if so, can I have some of that money?
Good question. No, we won't give you any money. This is a free publication and no-one is being paid, including us! No-one should ask you for money here either so if you are contacted by anyone claiming to be from Ceelong Cereal, offering any kind of paid service, please let us know immediately.
Why do I have to subscribe to see most of your stuff?
Another good question. Most of what we publish requires you to have a subscription to view it. Some content we keep public, for example all first chapters of our stories, but yes, most is for subscribers only. Subscription, which is free, helps us track what is popular and helps us get a sense of our audience engagement. It also means that when we publish something, it goes straight to your email, so you don't have to check the website all the time. It's the best way for us to connect artists with an audience.
Any other questions? Feel free to email us at thegeelongcereal@gmail.com
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Important things to consider before submitting your work to Geelong Cereal:
Geelong Cereal is a free digital publication staffed by volunteers. We do not pay for stories; the purpose of this publication is to publish work by writers and artists at any stage of their creative journey.
You retain copyright of your work and if you ask for it to be removed, it will be, no questions asked.
Please note that by sumbitting work to Geelong Cereal, you confirm that you hold the copyright and publishing rights to that work and it is not subject to any contracts.
Technical stuff.
This platform only accepts block paragraphing, and it melts down whenever a tab key is pressed anywhere in the universe. Please don't indent paragraphs, dialogue or anything else. Please use a single line space to separate paragraphs, different speakers etc just as you see here on this page.
'Like this?' you ask.
'Yes. Exactly like that,' Geelong Cereal replies. 'If I receive work with indents, I have to reformat it. You might not like the result, and that makes me a sad panda'.
Please submit your work using only .docx or PDF formats.
Sumbissions should be emailed to thegeelongcereal@gmail.com
Please submit your work in a 12pt serif font such as Times New Roman or Garamond.
Please be sure to include your name or handle and always give your work a title.
In your email, please state your name, the title of the piece, and let me know what you have written. (You don't need to summarise it, just say something like: 'this is a short fantasy story', or 'this is a comedic piece of microfiction' etc). Bonus points for including a word count, and a bio with a picture of you (or your cat etc) if you plan to be a regular contributor.
A note about pictures.
Geelong Cereal will not publish any AI generated or significantly AI-manipulated images.
You are welcome to include some definitely not AI pictures with your work, however it will not always be possible to publish them. If you include pictures they must be your own original artwork, used with permission by the artist, CC lisenced or public domain images, or photographs taken by you, which do not depict anything that breaches privacy or copyright laws. Images of children that could be used to generate abuse material won't be published.
Having said this, photography and art-work is highly valued here, and if you'd like to have a running photo or art journal or blog about your travels or your art or anything cool that features your pictures, please send me an outline of what you propose and we'll see if we can make it happen :-)
Content guidelines and content warnings.
Work deemed highly offensive will be refused. The purpose of Geelong Cereal is to provide a warm, encouraging and fun place for writers and artists to publish their work.
Geelong Cereal publishes work suitable for adults and mature teenagers 16+. Stories may contain adult themes, strong language, drug use etc, just please don't send in extreme graphic and or sexual violence, hate speech etc. We also won't publish tedious inflamatory political rants or anything defamatory. Content warnings will be provided where necessary.
Be considerate, help us create a welcoming and creative space, and most of all, have fun!
Specific guidelines for serial fiction.
If you are submitting a long piece to be published in sections, please clearly divide the work into roughly equal parts and number them. State in your email the number of sections and the approximate word count of each.
If you are planning to write an "on the run" serial, please send the first 2 episodes (each between 500-2500 words), an overview of how the story is likely to progress, and indicate how many episodes you forsee writing. A commitment to a minimum of six episodes and to writing an ending is required.
If you begin a serial here, and find you are unable to complete it, we ask that you allow another author to write an ending (a maximum of two more episodes) so our readers aren't left hanging and the site doesn't become an unfinished story graveyard.
If you aren't comfortable with that, of course we will simply remove the story at your request or put it on hold in the vault until you're ready to come back and finish it.
If another author writes an ending to your story, you will retain copyright of all of the parts of the story you wrote and the other author's ending could only be used by them if they removed all traces of characters, backstory and anything that has been clearly created by you from that work.
Microfiction Mondays
Microfiction Mondays features stories up to 300 words.
This can take any form or style you choose.
Two Sentence Fiction will be accepted, including but not limited to:
Two Sentence Horror Stories
Two Sentence Mystery Stories
Two Sentence Sci-Fi Stories
Two Sentence Literary Fiction
Please submit your work by 11:59pm on Saturday to have it included the next Monday.
Please email your submission to:
thegeelongcereal@gmail.com
Short stories and creative non-fiction
Important things to consider before sending individual short stories, poetry and creative non-fiction to be published by Geelong Cereal.
Many writing competitions and publications only accept work that has not been published. If there is a chance you may want to enter your work into a competition or submit it to a literary journal, we recommend you do that first.
This is particularly applicable to individual short stories of between 500-5,000 words, the common word count range for many of the various short story competitions available to emerging Australian writers.
If you have a short story that you think is pretty good, and it falls into one of those word counts, please submit it to whichever competitions grab your eye first, and if it doesn't find a home, we will be delighted to publish it afterwards.
Most notably for Geelong residents, Geelong Writers Inc run several fiction competitions each year, including The Geelong Writers Prize (up to 3,000 words), the Funniest 500 (up to 500 words), and the Finest 500 (believe it or not, also up to 500 words). They also publish a poetry journal and a yearly anthology. For your work to be included in any of these great competitions or publications, it must be as-yet-unpublished so if that's your goal for your piece please submit it there first. You can check out Geelong Writers various competitions and publication opportunities here:
Geelong Writers Inc
Geelong Cereal, on the other hand, will publish any great stories that come our way, even if they've been published elsewhere (for example, people frequently publish their own independently published work here).
Word Counts
For our purposes:
Microfiction is fiction up to 300 words.
Flash Fiction is fiction between 300-750 words.
Short fiction is fiction below 5,000 words.
Editorials or interest pieces should be between 500-3000 words.
We will aim to respond to all submissions as soon as we can but sometimes there may be delays. Please wait 14 days before reaching out.
Please check out the FAQ page for more important information.
Please email your submission to:
thegeelongcereal@gmail.com