Taco Bell Quarterly
@TBQuarterly
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Literary magazine more prestigious than the Paris Review / paying market / unaffiliated with Daddy Taco / tweets by EIC @mmcarrigan
obviously taco bell
Joined July 2019
The prestigious burrito has landed. Taco Bell Quarterly Volume 7 is here.
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Become a writer anyway. Fuck it, do it, it won't save you, but it's still a beautiful dream to write novels and short stories and poems and mingle with other dreamers and make art and laugh in the face of death. And writing is constant death. May you always live más.
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Become a writer. Just pick one of the things that is deeply wrong with you, make it a character, send it on a self help journey or try to kill it, and call it a book.
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Writing is fine. It's literally the most embarrassing thing on earth to put yourself on full display for rejection or validation, but it's fine. I enjoy it. I find it therapeutic to set myself on fire.
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You were never going to become a marine biologist. You probably would have killed entire underwater ecosystems. You can barely make a grilled cheese. You're a writer. There were no better choices. Live más.
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Write because you are going to run out of everything else. Fucks to give, money, energy, even life itself. But you will never, ever run out of beautiful ways to describe the moon. It's also your only talent! Live más.
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just vomit up your whole novel up in a month the old fashioned way: using your brain and raw unadulterated self-loathing.
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You should start writing again. The idea of Literary writing is made up, a construct to gatekeep. Literary writing is a conversation with other writers, and anyone can join in at any time. Anyone who tells you there are rules is a gatekeeper.
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We pay $100 for fiction, nonfic, flash, poems, art, comics, songs, fever dreams and more. The only guideline is it needs a Taco Bell reference. We're just as prestigious as the Paris Review and New Yorker. You're a real writer and you're gorgeous. Write something Literary for us.
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You should start writing again because it isn't an exclusive club you have to level up to get into. There is nothing prestigious about any of this. The Literary World's most gatekept secret is that it is dying. We are all dying. Let's write unhinged poems about it and live más.
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Become a writer. What's the worst that could happen? Spending hundreds and hundreds of hours on something you secretly hope will save you but will only break your heart instead? That's actually one of the easier gauntlets to survive. Live más.
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Something like 80% of the population dreams of being a writer. It's so fundamental to humanity, it's embedded dormant in almost all of us. It's alive in you. Fight through the drafts. Fight through the dull ache that haunts you. Don't fight yourself. Fight the gatekeeping.
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Start writing the book. It has a 0% chance of survival. The years and obstacles ahead of it are nearly insurmountable, the psychic pain will be significant, and the journey is almost guaranteed to be financially worthless. We're writers. We don't do math. Take the shot.
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Write because fuck this unrelenting summer. Write because we're all filled with rage and sadness and microplastics and we want to live más.
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You're a writer. And you're going to make it. Somehow. Maybe. You just keep crafting those beautiful sentences. Or just completely stumblefuck your way through it. You're good. Gorgeous. Live más.
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Poetry isn't something you recite after you give up. It's the summoning and shouting and prayers before you charge at the gods you don't believe in. Live más.
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I'm running a literary magazine for fun in middle age, I'm losing money and probably my real job soon, I have no books out and there probably is no god! Become a writer!.
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You need to be writing your goddamn book I don't even know what you're doing here.
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Make your mental illness work with you, not against you. Become a writer.
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Optimism is radical in the hellscape. Making art and writing stories and poems is radical. These things won't save you, but they might save someone else.
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In 2019 I was 39. I felt too old and too late but I was like let me try getting back into writing. I was promptly rejected all over again and reminded that I suck. So then I said fuck it, and completely made up the most prestigious literary magazine of all time. Become a writer.
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Stop having imposter syndrome. No one is good at this. Everyone's first drafts come out like hot spewing garbage pouring forth from every orifice. You're doing great. Stab your eyes out to make more holes to bleed from and then send it to the fucking New Yorker.
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I'm an unsuccessful middle-aged writer who gained a lot of clout from telling people to put Taco Bell references in their short stories because my creative writing degree traumatized me. Who wants to submit to my literary magazine!?.
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Bang out that novel and try not to die. Live fucking más, the planet is boiling and no one will care if something was beautiful once! Make trash!.
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Just accepted a piece from a writer who had never even submitted anywhere before. She just decided, well, why the hell not? You should ask yourself this question as a writer ten times, a hundred times a day.
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COVER REVEAL! TBQ5! The Taco Bell Quarterly, the literary world's most esteemed publication, drops on 4/20 with 25 new pieces defining the intersection of Art and Taco Bell. Not a joke. We're more relevant than the Paris Review.
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In order to write a book, you have to write a book.
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Just churn it out. You will never run out of your bullshit. You are endlessly capable of producing trash. You are going to run out of everything else: time, money, health, and luck. Absolute shit is your only unlimited resource!.
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Taco Bell Quarterly Volume 6. It's free. It's fresh. It's new. It's prestigious. It's here.
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Re-posting because It's always worth killing the bastard again: Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands by Felix in TBQ7.
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We close in 11 days! We pay $100! We are a prestigious Literary Magazine run by a writer with no books, awards, or even a single professional experience in editing, including never even having worked with an editor before I started this joke! You're doing fine! Submit something!.
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We aggressively encourage everyone to make bad art that wastes everyone's time, destroys entire literary canons, and celebrates total garbage! Live más!.
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Become a writer! Just squeeze it in between your two other jobs and full-time equivalent commitments!.
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You have to love writing but it does not mean it will be enjoyable or make you happy. These are three different feelings. If they ever align, even for a few sentences, it's like a drug that you keep chasing. Become a writer.
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Laughing in the face of death is easy. Wait until you see the gates where capitalism launders its blood money through hopes and dreams, you'll crack up.
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How to become a writer: you just start calling yourself one! This amazingly dumb trick 100% works! There is no literary world! They will 100% let any jackass in. There's no one in charge, the whole thing is an illusion, you can change the rules at any point because there are none.
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I enjoy writing. I enjoy the dull ache of unrequited love as a lifestyle. I enjoy trying to bridge my parasocial relationships nakedly in front of strangers. I enjoy performing my pain in front of all the ghosts I've begged to love me.
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Writing is for everyone. There are no elite scenes that get to define who is a writer. Everyone dreams of writing a book. It comes starter pack in humanity because it needs that many bodies-- I mean, dreamers. Vomit up that novel. Bang it out. Try not to die. Live más.
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Creative writing will not bring you money, fame, happiness, or validation. Generally it brings you nothing! Be prepared to bring everything of yourself and receive absolutely nothing! Become a writer!.
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Writers today don't just have to learn how to endure rejection. You have to learn how to survive every apocalypse of literature, collapse of social media, and how to stare down the rigged impossibility of your dreams! Fuck this shit! Fight through it! Write books! Live más!.
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There is nothing else to do but write during this dark, unaffordable, and unrelenting summer. We pay $100. You tell us what's Literary. It needs a Taco Bell reference. It is no more arbitrary than any of the other rules.
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Oh shit, the poet laureate of the United States @adalimon follows back the Taco Bell Quarterly, the most prestigious literary magazine
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The New York Times declares poetry dead. Oh shut up. The only obituary you are writing is your own! Leave your dead behind and burn it all down then! Live más!.
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How to become a literary writer: find your people, make friends, call yourself a writer, too. Try to make money, try to be happy, Try. It's what Taco Bell would want.
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NYT is trash. They interviewed us last month and didn't run it because I said the lit world is dying. I was heavily lead in the questioning to say everything was thriving and the piece was killed for not playing along. It's all rigged. There is no literary world.
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Spend some time inside our latest issue on another uncomfortably warm winter day in February. Is it spring already? A prescient poem from @rhiannonmcgavin. TBQ6.
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Normalize switching between first, second, and third person points of view three times in an essay, the reader can white knuckle through it.
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Update: finished reading the submissions for TBQ7! Around 4% of them have made it into to a second round, and less than 1% will be accepted! There's no hope in creative writing. The odds are forever grim and impossible! Rejection is coming for you. Live más!.
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Write because there is nothing coming to save any of us. The saved are predetermined. It's rigged. It's capitalism. It's religion. It's a death cult. Write because you want to live más.
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It's the Taco Bell Fucking Quarterly! It really is. Thank you so much for this. Your kind words mean so much to us personally. We are more prestigious than the Paris Review, and TBQ7 is coming, and 8 and 9 and 10, and beyond! Live más!.
ITS TIME. Congratulations TOP 5 LITMAGS OF 2023💫. @TBQuarterly .@SmokeLong .@HooghlyReview .@press_roi .@StanchionZine . And thank you to EVERYONE that celebrated these spectacular journals this week🖤. ⬇️ Why won & how to submit. #WritingCommunity
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I started a writing prompt where everyone has to shoehorn a Taco Bell reference into their creative writing, I posted it to my blog and called it a literary magazine more prestigious than the Paris Review and called myself the Editor Grande Supreme and I did not blink once.
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It requires delusion. You must truly believe it could be published in the New Yorker as is and will bypass the agent directly into the arms of Simon and Schuster, even though in its current form, the people who love you most couldn't care. Suspend your disbelief. Start writing.
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Submit something. We are the most prestigious Literary Magazine of all time. We are seeking poems, prose, fiction, art and otherwise undefinable. We pay $100. You can make up the rules at any point! All of Literature needs an arbitrary Taco Bell reference from now on!.
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We got one in the poems that will fuck you up department. She Was Fine Two Weeks Before from TBQ4:
Recommend a poem that will fuck me up.
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They acted like everything was so inspiring, but everything that inspired me is dead or is slowly strangled by disillusionment. Like it was a grift, like some kind of inspirational hustle of capitalism. I learned it by watching you, Dad!.
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Because creative writing is your only talent and you have no way to retire and the literary world is barely even real. We are encouraging everyone to become famous writers anyway! Let's just get weird about it. LIVE MÁS.
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Write a whole book. Just harness the panic and ride it into hell.
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I'm writing a book. The gates have creaked. Now open them wider. Overwhelm them. Online lit mags are the future. Flash whatever qualifications you have, even if it's just an empty Taco Bell gift card. There are no rules. Make what you want. Take your shot. Live fucking más.
IT'S HAPPENING. I'm writing a dream book on a dream subject with a dream publisher, working with the brilliant @emilycpolson at @ScribnerBooks! This is SURREAL. Keep going. Keep writing. Put yourself out there. Invent your own qualifications. There are no rules. Live más.
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I'm not even remotely kidding. There is no Literary World! Start making whatever you want right now. If anyone starts blathering that there are rules, run like hell, they are gatekeepers! Live más!.
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When I turned 40, I had no bylines, no books, and no one read my blog. A few years later, I sold a book on a proposal to the big 5. You gotta believe in yourself because it's still important, it still matters, so keep going. You can leave yourself for dead or you can live más.
When I turned 40, I had 320 short story rejections and no books published. A few years later, I've published a short story collection and two novels with another on the way. Believe in yourself like someone who loves you.
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Your non-existent end-of-year recap is fine. Being a writer isn't about generating constant success. It's more like generating constant trash, hoping something will burn as fuel long enough to move you forward in any meaningful way. Generate trash and set it on fire.
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The Paris Review is here at #AWP24 and is in the same row. This is where it will end. The Literary World will find out today why they never acknowledged the Taco Bell Quarterly. They are going to respond today directly to my face!.
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Happy was never realistic for you! Write a book!.
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The Literary World's Prestigious Taco Bell Quarterly just reached 28.5k followers, surpassing the esteemed Virginia Quarterly Review, and now sitting among the top 30 largest Literary publications online. We will take the gates of the Paris Review and ring the Taco Bell.
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Slate just added googly eyes to our covers for some reason
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Shout out to the sophomore Honors English II teacher who had the entire class submit! Your students think you are "really cool," and are inspired by the fact that you are also "not a professional nor qualified writer" who "enjoys doing it." I promise you it's all of us. Live más.
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Ew I just saw some transphobia on my timeline. Take note this fake magazine is run by trans men and a trapeze swinging they/them. you should unfollow accordingly. Also your writing probably sucks and you should quit.
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You simply must find a level of delusion within yourself you didn't know was possible! Become a writer!.
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you better write your whole ass book, like today.
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I didn't realize it was actually every literary writer's backup plan to be a marine biologist. I just wanted to feed dolphins and be loved and instead I can't stand myself!.
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How to become a writer: be good at something else so that you can make money!.
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It's absolutely real. It's free. It pays. It's Literary. And it will soon control one of your gates, lit world. We are prestigious, too. I don't have any qualifications, books, prizes, or even a MFA. All I have is this taco bell I borrowed. We are approaching 20k. Live más.
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The Literary World's Prestigious Taco Bell Quarterly has surpassed 27,000 followers, needing only 973,000 more writers to take the gates of the Paris Review, climb to the top, and ring the Taco Bell. Live más.
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We are open for submissions, we pay $100, and at the moment, we have enough to live más for two issues or one year. Maybe we die, maybe taco bell will give a million dollars, maybe we take the gates of the Paris Review. Let's fuck around and find out. Come with us.
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How to make a lit mag? Think smaller. These things were never meant to have annual subscriptions and board members and bylaws. They were meant to be hustled out of backpacks at readings and conspirationally spread by word of mouth in bars and found on flyers on poles.
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Do you enjoy useless gatekeeping, not making money, insults to your face, and moments of heartache so profound it will bring you to your knees? Creative writing calls for you.
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Become a writer. The worst thing that will happen is that you'll be swallowed by the oblivion you were already staring into.
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Regret to inform the nearly 40,000 followers that AWP has once again declined both panels in which we were going to talk about building platform. I just got a book deal from Simon and Schuster, how much are you charging for this fancy advice again.
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Writing a book is the worst idea you've ever had yet! You're not going to make any money! It's going to be nearly impossible to get people to care! And also, nobody has heard of you! Go for it.
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You will be rejected immediately SOON. Fun stats: 998 poetry submissions, cut to 87, cut to 26, soon to be cut to 12! You have no chance in creative writing! None at all! Live más!.
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This has thousands of likes. Whenever you see one of the writers psyching up a bunch of the others, the ringleader is the neediest of them all. Write a book, everybody's doing it, who cares if it becomes a centerpiece of your pain that you must perform for others.
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It's too expensive to do shit this summer, basically the only thing you can afford to do right now is stay home and write a novel.
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Promote yourself relentlessly and disgustingly. Anyone saying otherwise is gatekeeping.
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I have no MFA, no books, and no experience and have named myself the prestigious arbiter of taco bell literature. you can do whatever you want in the literary world. go write your beautiful novel.
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TBQ is a queer lit mag. It is edited by trans writers. We encourage writers to try on the taco bell and experience the literary euphoria. Live más.
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The Literary World's Prestigious Taco Bell Quarterly has surpassed 38 thousand followers, approaching AWP itself, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, reaching every MFA student in America. Live más!
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You're definitely a writer. Look how frighteningly far you've managed to drag yourself into this obscure niche of social media where everyone is screaming and fighting existentially with each other and calling it art. Look at me I made a trash kingdom of Taco Bell wrappers!.
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Submission pile is looking fat and great. Keep sending stuff, we close July 31st and we want to crush everyone's hopes to less than 1%. It currently stands at 1.7% which is far too optimistic for this magazine. We can define Literary however we want. Send trash. We pay $100.
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The ENTIRE Literary World is going to be talking about this drop today. Your Taco Bell Quarterly, the Fall 2020 issue, is here. Scare the world.
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You should apply for this remote position at the Paris Review that pays someone to read their slushpile at a little over $3 per sub, that's more than you can make writing these things, honestly
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My creative writing tip is you do not have to arrange these things perfectly like Tetris pieces. Just run into those walls head first like the Kool-Aid Man.
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Taco Bell Quarterly only needs 987,000 more followers to surpass our literary rival, @parisreview. Let's see if we can make it happen by midnight.
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You don't need executive functioning and plans to make money, you can just run on vibes and energy drinks until your heart explodes, everything will be fine, write a literary novel.
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Taco Bell Quarterly has surpassed 18k followers, needing only 981,900 to take the gates of the Paris Review. The gatekeepers are dead ass asleep at those gaudy ass gates and we're going to ring the taco bell to wake them up. Live más.
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Write something for us. We're open until July 31. The odds are 1%, the prize is $100 and prestigious publication in the Taco Bell Quarterly, and the dream of creative writing is alive and well for one more stupid day! Live más!.
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