The Poison Pen

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POISON PEN

Have you ever dreamed of:

*hitting a walk-off HR in Yankee Stadium to beat the Bronx Bombers in game seven of the World Series?

*preventing Jason Giambi from scoring the tying run in the deciding game of the ALCS by tagging him out after a brutal collision at home plate?

*whistling a little chin music past Derek Jeter?

If your answer was “yes”, then get a hold of yourself. It will never happen.

But what if you could be Michael Wilbon or Tony Kornheiser? Not in terms of physical attributes, of course, because nonsensical is the dream in which a downgrade is dealt upon us. But, rather, what if you could yield the type of raw power that these sports commentators possess: the power to apply fool’s logic to the world of sports without any fear of retribution.

Well, this dream is a bit more attainable that the Yankeeshater™ sports fantasies listed above. Sure, we don’t offer a TV medium. Or a massive audience. Or an absurdly inflated W-2. But we do offer an avenue of expression if your column is good enough. Your friends might be impressed.

Here are the rules:

1. Provide a literary experience that offers the appropriate contextual backdrop. If you live in Fargo, ND—for example—then your piece might benefit from the inclusion of some local references (e.g., the name of the outdoor ice rink where all the locals congregate to trade Yankeeshater™ stories and complain about Home Depot’s refusal to offer “levels” for sale). To put it briefly, don’t leave out the “who, what, where, and why.”
2. It is easy to be crass. And hard to be clever. And extremely difficult to be “readable”. We prefer (and demand) clever and “readable”.
3. There’s a right way to write a first-person account, and a wrong way. If the piece is all “me, me, me,” then you’ve mastered the wrong way. On a related note, we are not accepting any submissions from Donald Trump.
4. You’ll need to sign a waiver which: (a) gives us the permission to reproduce the article/column on our website without compensation; (b) swears that you did not copy/ plagiarize the work of another; (c) allows us to edit the piece as we deem fit; (d) allows us to identify you as the creator of the piece; (e) swears that the submission of the piece—and the publication of it on our website—will not infringe upon the rights (e.g., copyrights or other rights) of another person or entity.

In short, this needs to be an original work that has not previously been published or been the subject of an agreement of publication.

1. Submissions should range between 2,000 and 3,500 words. Furthermore, we are looking for sports-related, feature-style columns, not “play-by-play” accounts of games or events. In an ideal situation, the shelf life of a column submitted for publication would be at least 2 weeks.

NOTE: The publication authorization will be delivered via email after we have received a submission worthy of publication.

We hate rules, but there are lots of lawsuits in the world and we don’t want to get involved in anything like that. By the way, there’s no requirement that the pieces submitted focus on Yankeeshating experiences. If it’s a good enough sports piece, it will fly here. We particularly like oddball pieces on obscure sporting activities. For example, not many people in Arizona know a thing about broomball, a sport that is wildly popular at some college campuses in the Northeast (brief explanation: it is played on a hockey rink, and it features sneaker-wearing players armed with sawed-off broomsticks who attempt to shoot a large, orange ball past a goalie.).

Best of luck. We look forward to reading your collective works and, hopefully, making some of you the envy of your friends for three minutes or so.