The New Dentists

Cholo Mercado

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who’s reading this right now. This would be useless without you. Applause for everyone. Now, as we now exist—after a long period of primordial preparation—we’d like to share with you who we are and what we stand for. it is only fair to let you know what you’re getting into, correct?

We are The New Dentists. We are not actually dentists. But we say we are. It’s a game of pretend, you see. If we say we are, then we are. Blah, blah, reality, philosophical arguments—here’s the point: you, my friend, may have been told all your life that you are not a writer. You’ve always called yourself an “aspiring” writer or a “frustrated” writer. You may not actually be a writer, for writing requires tons of skills. Very understandable. But—in here—you can say you are. In here, call yourself a writer and we will believe you. We do not need your credentials. What we need is your soul within your writing. Give us that, and we will publish it.

You’re scratching your head and you’re saying that sort of makes sense, but not really. Well, to be honest with you I just made that up and The New Dentists just sounded cool so we went with it. See? We’re not actually publishers, but since we say we are, we can be! Magical, yes? I’m sure we’ll figure the name out one of these days.

But the point is: let go of those notions that you cannot write and let the words flow through you. Then, submit your work to us. Due to space issues, we won’t be able to publish everything—but the good, inspired, daring, genuine ones will always, always find a place here. That is a promise.

So who’s “we”, exactly?

Well, my name is Cholo. I am the editor-in-chief. Now, don’t panic. As editor-in-chief, I do very little other than mediate. I’m just a regular editor, but I can stop people from bickering when a work divides the staff, which is very, very useful when violence start to be an issue during editorial meetings.

We also have managing editor Grace Wang (she does the actual work, if I’m going to be honest), editors Ayu Martinez and Ysa Reyes (crazy talents), copy-editor Ali Ramirez, and that’s all of us at the moment. That is why we need you, if you are so inclined, to join us. We need someone who’s willing to read submissions and pass judgement on them, preferably someone with a literary education, and someone with a fresh, bold vision s/he will be willing to contribute. We also need visual artists, website designers, and other copy-editors.

If you’re interested, please impress us at thenewdentists@gmail.com with the heading “New Dentist”.

So, finally, if you’re interested in submitting but not joining us (sort of like how you like someone, but you don’t like-like someone, you know?) you may. We accept basically anything that’s written. We outline a few forms in our submission page, but we literally accept anything that’s written. It will be very hard to deliberate on something experimental, of course—but we promise to deliberate until we can deliberate no more before passing judgement. We prefer daring, bold, new voices. Ones that challenge current notions of literature. Shock us.

Do follow the guidelines though. Head it with “SUBMISSION” and include a short biographical note of yourself.

So there. Thank you again, readers. Know that though we run the site, this is a community effort. The works here will be your works. We have set the stage—now, get on it and show us what you can do.

Spread the word! Submit your stuff! We may be starting something very important here. We’ve always heard things like “words can change the world” and “the pen is mightier than the sword.” If you’ve always believed in these worn-out words, how about we begin proving it? Right here. Starting now.