Answers to Questions & Accusations, Including Submissions Guidelines & How to Contact Us

About Johnny America

Johnny America is a large rabbit who lives in a bungalow on the Moon between two rivers of wine (one red, one white). He is the also namesake of this website of fiction, humor, and other miscellany and of the Johnny America print zine that’s published about twice a year by the Moon Rabbit Drinking Club & Benevolence Society (ISSN 1553-9177).

Johnny America spends most of his days lounging against a low crater, fishing rod in paw. Some afternoons he helps plow the cheese fields — to earn extra money for carrots — but usually he’s in the valley cut by the Mercer and Mancini Rivers, idling. The fish on the Moon are constantly drunk and easy to catch. They look almost exactly like bass but taste of marmalade and cinnamon.

From time to time Johnny casts his line toward Earth, slides down the filament, and calls a meeting of the Moon Rabbit Drinking Club & Benevolence Society. The meetings are typically pot-luck affairs. Johnny contributes wine and Moon cheese, which is lighter than Earth cheese because gravity is not so greedy there. Emily brings delicious Scotch and tiramisu; Jonathan offers tonic, gin, and vegetable korma. Patrick supplies bourbon, Coca-Cola, and crawfish gumbo. When Aaron arrives, the party really hops — he brings still more Scotch, plus buckets of extra-crispy chicken, since his kitchen is very small and he doesn’t care for cooking. Others bring other things too numerous to enumerate. A good time is had by all.

If you would like to contact a specific contributor

You’ll find this list of our attractive but aloof contributors extremely handy. Many listings include author e-mail addresses and links to contributor’s websites.

What About O.J.?

He loved too hard.

What About Snooki?

She tans too hard.

What About Dogs?

They should not eat socks.

What about cats?

They are hilarious and beautiful and should be discussed at every opportunity.

For Comments, Suggestions, Criticism, or Trades

There are numerous ways to contact us:

Our e-mail address for general correspondence is johnnyamerica@johnnyamerica.com. Please do not send submissions to this address; the correct protocol for submissions is described just a little farther down this page.

We welcome and encourage gifts, trades, and unsolicited baked goods. Send cookies, books, ’zines, and bags of wine to:

Johnny America
P.O. BOX 44-2001
Lawrence, KS   66044
U.S.A.

I have a song stuck in my head. Can you save me?

Believe it or not, yes.

Here at Moon Rabbit H.Q. we’ve developed a sure-fire method for stopping catchy choruses in their tracks: just sing the Chili’s “Baby Back Ribs Song” for a minute or two, and you’ll find yourself cured. It’ll supplant whatever Top 40 hit’s stuck in your brain, then fade away quickly. Don’t believe us? Try it.

If you call us at (415) 508-MOON we’ll glady sing it to you for a low twenty dollar fee, though consider yourself warned that our tonal range leaves a lot to be desired, and that long distance charges to San Francisco may apply.

About Submissions

Submissions will be skimmed by a junior volunteer of questionable competence (Richard the Intern) who sneaks web access while at his day job. If he likes a submission he will propel it to our physically perfect but capricious editors, who depending on their sobriety might or might not take notice. Our junior volunteer’s attention span is limited and his taste unrefined. He’s started a fledgling list of topics and themes we’re not generally interested in publishing, though as you might imagine, on occasion we’re likely to make exceptions to our stated prejudices.

Johnny America specializes in very short shorts, though we frequently accept short shorts and fairly often bite on short stories and short essays that are merely on the briefish side in length. Items over 3,000 words by persons other than Eli S. Evans will almost never be accepted, while items over 4,500 words cannot possibly be considered. Items under 100 words are usually too short for our tastes, which strongly favor the numerical range between 200 and 2,000 words.

By far the easiest way to divine what sort of stories we’re looking for to read a copy of the print edition or peruse our extensive archives. Like most publications, Johnny America has a tone all its own, and if you haven’t spent an hour or two reading J.A. to know whether your submission’s a probable fit, you’re doing yourself a great disservice and insulting us to boot.

Our friend Kyle is kind enough to lend us his proofreading and copyediting expertise, but his bourbon ration is miniscule and his patience finite, so we kindly request that writers continue sending only error-free, grammatically prefect sumbissions for the foreseeable future.

Please note that previously published work cannot be considered, and that submissions will be automatically considered for both the website and print edition, without exception.

Simultaneous submissions? We’re fine with those — but please grant us the courtesy of notification if your story’s accepted elsewhere. Also: Please send only one submission at a time. Like all primates, we’re lazy and love fresh fruits; because submissions with multiple attachments are often a chore to read, they’re likely lay rotting at the bottom of our e-mail queues for an inordinate time.

There’s no need to include an author bio with your submission — if we need one we’ll fabricate our own — but if you have a website or Twitter feed you’d like us to list on your author page, it would be wise to let us know at the time of your submission. Please note that we list contributor e-mail addresses on our website unless instructed to the contrary.

All submissions should be sent to submissions@johnnyamerica.com.

Payment

Will either be ten bucks American cash or a modest bottle of wine. We provide a free contributor’s copy to authors included in the print edition. We wish we could do more, but for the moment that’s all we can manage.

Speaking of

We’re a poor, no, destitute publication, but we feel it’s important to compensate our contributors for the wonderful words they have to share. Whether you’re a regular reader, fellow writer submitting to J.A. for the first time, or even enemy of writing, writers, and Johnny America, please consider contributing to our contributor wine fund. It’s easy, and even a quarter dollar helps. PayPal donations may be sent to donations@johnnyamerica.com. Your generosity is appreciated.

Also

Know that we respond to all submissions within one month. If you don’t hear from us within a month, it’s safe to say your message was lost due either to our junior volunteer’s ever-wavering organizational abilities or to over-active e-mail filters. Consider yourself encouraged to re-send your work.

And

We reserve the non-exclusive right to reprint submissions in any print or electronic compilation we can manage to publish, with the understanding that as long as Johnny America remains a scrappy, break-even affair neither secondary monies nor secondary libations shall be required, but that that if there’s ever serious dough to be divvied, profits will be shared in a fair and transparent manner and we won’t short-change our writers.

What of Copyrights?

All items on this web site and in the print magazine are © Copyrighted and are not to be stolen. Stories published here are the intellectual property of their authors. Site design and uncredited text are © Copyright 2003–3003 by the Moon Rabbit Drinking Club & Benevolence Society.

Other Miscellany

People truly ask, so we’ll answer: the serif typeface we use for the magazine is ‘Perpetua,’ designed by Eric Gill in 1928. It’s named in honor of Vibia Perpetua, the patron saint of cattle. A Roman Christian, Emperor Severus sentenced her to death by stampede when she refused to deny her main man J.C. After a mad heifer trampling through an arena failed to do her in, she helped guide a nervous gladiator’s sword to her throat and her martyrdom was cinched. You were a strange girl, Perpetua, but you inspired a lovely typeface.

The rounded sans-serif we started using with Issue Five is ‘Gotham Rounded,’ a new-ish typeface from the foundry Hoefler & Frere-Jones. It is a versatile font, expressing “sass” in its heavier weights and embodying “class” in its ‘Light’ and ‘Light Italic.’ Like Beyoncé, its letterforms are pleasingly rounded.

If you have a web site and would like to link to us

You are encouraged to do so, free of charge. We are well-respected but surprisingly unpopular, and could use the publicity.

If you have a Twitter feed and would care to mention us

Please see the terms and comments above.