We met the end of our five-issue cycle of Fawlt with a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety. Excitement because we were never sure whether we’d have the tenacity to maintain Fawlt over the duration and we were thrilled when, with the debut of Apathy, we completed what we’d initially set out to do. But we were anxious because we had no idea what to do next, or whether to let the online literary magazine gracefully bow out.
        One of the biggest problems: we were running out of themes. While mankind has many fatal flaws, after Dependence, Perfectionism, Apathy, Arrogance, and Self-Delusion, it all becomes a mire of synonyms or over-specific themes (schadenfreude, road rage). We toyed with the idea of doing a cycle based on the Seven Cardinal Sins, but even those were a bit too narrow. Additionally, it’s a bit repetitive to read stories, poems, and essays that are explicitly about Lust or Avarice or Sloth.
        Which is why we’ve decided to discard themes and open up Fawlt to all submissions. The only rule? All poetry and prose should be about people with problems. And that’s pretty easy to satisfy because the only writers that don’t write about people with problems work for Hallmark. And in opening up Fawlt, we were able to continue publishing a much broader swath of writers, from relative newcomers to a Pulitzer Prize-winner.
        So here we go: The New Fawlt Mag, Now With More Turmoil.

    Ryan Joe
    Editor, Fawlt Magazine