ISSUE 4 // WINTER 2025

"Upheaval"

We are being pushed to our limits; the world around us is accelerating to a precipice. In New Session’s return, we asked authors to consider how they’ve learned to adapt, but adaptations can only take a person so far. There are certain breaking points beyond which nothing can ever be the same. In the harsh light of present reality, certain questions stand in stark relief: the system as it is cannot continue, what will replace it? What does that inflection point look like? How does what comes after relate to what comes before? What echoes remain?

What We Need From You

New Session issue four will present a similar format to issue three, with an additional twist. In issue three, writers submitted “variances,” or small differences in each piece, that would change based on certain conditions. For example, some pieces changed based on the weather, others on the number of views.

For issue four, we are looking for short stories, poetry, and non-fiction that contain “upheavals”, or permanently-changing variances. Essentially, we’re asking you to submit work that has small or large changes based on any number of conditions, but which change permanently, and for every reader, all at once. For example, a story can be different if it’s been read more than one hundred times; the one hundred and first reader (and all subsequent readers), would receive a story that’s either subtly or entirely different than the previous one. Your story could also change if a famous person dies, or if the stock market dips below a certain value. These are just examples, but in issue four, we’re being significantly more open about the variances: There are no technical limits to what you can choose here. If there is no way to manage this automatically in software, the editors will “flip the switch” for you manually (though please expect it to take a day or so).

Your submission may have entirely separate versions, or the “upheaval” can be a series of smaller changes. But it must be binary (either it’s on or off) and permanent (once it’s on, it’s on for everyone).

Submissions open today and close on November 7.

As per our last issue, please format your work to fit on an 80x24 terminal screen (that’s 80 horizontal characters and 24 vertical). We’re shooting for a length of between 5 and 10 “pages” of 80x24 text for a single reading of the story (ie, each upheaval can make it much longer), but we are quite flexible on length.

Issue 4 will be released on December 1, in both Telnet and HTML forms.

Email your submissions to: newsessioneditors@gmail.com

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