Venice. A place that makes one reflect on beauty and decline; on capitalism and tourism; on history and equilibrium; on grandeur, and obsolescence. Not a bad metaphor, before it sinks.

Want to write for us? Send us a pitch: thevenicereview@gmail.com

Some editorial notes:

We publish short pieces of cultural and political commentary and critique, reviews, and even fiction.

Word length: 2,000-3,500. Open to serial submissions.

A little bit about grammar: em-dash not en-dash, oxford comma, UK spelling. We reserve the right to edit articles by third parties for style and grammar.

The best thing to do is to read our past work! To help you out, here’s a quick-and-dirty on our vibes:

Yes please:  

  • Bold statements

  • Anti-hegemony

  • Humility

  • Entertaining people and notions 

  • Occasional humour 

  • Assuming intelligence without sounding pretentious 

  • Political Theory (but not too heavy)

  • Psychoanalysis (of all stripes)

  • The likes of D. H. Lawrence, Italo Calvino, Frantz Fanon, Susan Sontag, Gramsci (but not all Gramscians), C. L. R. James, Dostoevsky, Hilary Mantel, Lacan, Kristeva, Virginia Woolf, Heidegger, Walter Benjamin. 

  • Beauty?

Not so much:

  • Needlessly bold statements

  • Virtual and augmented reality

  • Too much twitter poisoning 

  • Self-obsession 

  • Teenage obsession

  • Facile critiques of religion/the past 

  • New sincerity 

  • Dark academia 

  • Transhumanism / Biohacking

  • The likes of Sally Rooney, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, over-emphasising John Updike or Jonathan Franzen, Donna Haraway worshippers. 

It seems vulgar to succeed, and so forth.

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Venice (but as a metaphor)