it’s about
THE UNEARTHING.
why the hog?
FOUR TROTTERS
For us, the hog is the totem animal of the green. Low-slung, rootling, acorn-swallowing— he exists in a liminal space between something of the earth and a creature of mind existing in it. That’s where the muscle and tendons of good landscape writing should be.
wandering
It all begins with a spark at the side of the head: something that says here, here I know myself as part of this. We publish resourceful writing from wanderlusters and homecomers: the hog has travelled as a beast, and thrived in the wild parts of history long before man built the sty.
an urge to dig
Landscape is a narrative of layers. We are not the first to experience sights that stir us, nor to have sacred, personal mythologies about it. Exploring those depths is part of knowing the land as we write it, and the hog is a creature exceptionally crafted for the shifting of earth.
what we’re about.
The Hog wants to publish writing about landscape and nature that’s bold and unruly. We don’t adhere to any firm definitions of landscape or nature writing, and welcome the speculative as well as the literary. We want to know where the land strikes you in the chest, how it changed you, or how a long-dead hand has caught at your hood from across the ages. In short: we want you to fucking mean it.
Our submissions centre accepts short fiction, flash fiction, poetry and literary criticism on a quarterly issue to rolling basis.
Our submission requirements are here.
We especially want to publish those who are historically under-represented in landscape writing: those from marginalised social groups, ethnicities, communities or sexualities, focusing on those from working-class and moderate- to low-income backgrounds. We leave the definition of these up to you.
but my dad wasn’t an anything
H.P. is a career copy-scribbler who never grew out of their ghost stories phase. After finishing a literature Ph.D. at one of London’s least fun universities, they cultivate an enduring, recovering love of pie, pigs and Old English poetry in the north of England.
