Stone's Throw is the monthly online companion to Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, delivering shorter, sharper content on a regular basis in an electronic medium, before collecting all 12 stories for an annual print anthology.

Stone's Throw is the monthly online companion to Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, delivering shorter, sharper content on a regular basis in an electronic medium, before collecting all 12 stories for an annual print anthology. 

Each month, writers are given a submission prompt, and the best story is published online the following month. 

After a year, all twelve stories are compiled into a Stone’s Throw Annual Anthology, published alongside other print issues.

Stone's Throw [Rock and a Hard Place Press]

Art Submissions

Just because anyone can open a DraftKings account or can go rolling the dice at a local casino doesn’t mean gambling has gone legit. This month, we’re looking for stories from the real gamblers, the people who put it all on the line, and lost (or won) big, and the effects on those around them. Make it dirty. Make it seedy. Remind everyone what it can mean to lose it all.

DOUBLE DOWN AND THEN DO IT AGAIN


Pools are opening, prom has been had, and the teenagers, full of rage, hormones, and an uncertain future, are finally being let loose from their prisons . . . err . . . schools. This month, we’re looking for teenage noir. First cars. First jobs. First kisses. Last chances. Here at STONE’S THROW, we know the children are the future. But we also know the kids aren’t alright.

SCHOOLS OUT (FOREVER)


It’s hot again, and the snakes are sunning themselves beneath the juniper tress. This month, we want to feel the heat, so we’re looking for stories set in the desert, and though it may sound like we’re looking for westerns, Louis L’Amour can sit this one out. This month, we’re looking for modern neo-westerns. Make them punchy. Make them hardbitten. Spill some blood on the sand. Remind everyone that noir and the western have always been kissing cousins, and that the promise of the western has always been a lie, because the west was built on noir.

THEY DONT CALL IT BLOOD GULCH BECAUSE THE SWIMMING IS GOOD


Some people think July is America’s birthday, but they’re wrong. America was here thousands of years before the Fourth of July was even a twinkle in Jefferson’s eye. This month, we want stories from those who were here before, about the indigenous people who were here first. Whether it’s set as Custer and his cronies moved across the plains, or before the first white people stepped in to the woods, or now, in cities or on the Rez, we want the stories that so many powerful people worked to keep silent for so long.
*EDITOR’S NOTE* – Please note, everyone is encouraged to submit. But this month, special consideration will be given to Own Voices writers with indigenous histories.

THE RED, WHITE, AND DUE

THESE SOCCER MOMS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME
This month, we’re looking for stories by and about women. Specifically, we’re looking for the challenges modern women face, anywhere from the workplace to the invisible labor of maintaining a home, to the stresses of being a mom. We want to see what happens when the women in our lives who so effortlessly look like they’re keeping it all together finally begin to crack, and of course, the fallout that ensues. Yeah, home is where the heart is, but only because there’s a woman there, doing all the work. And not only does she know where the heat is, she has access to plenty of knives.

THESE SOCCER MOMS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME

I HATE TO SPOIL THE END OF CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE, THE PRESTIGE, BUT . . .
This month, we’re wading in to the gene pool and pulling out duplicates. Twins. Whether fraternal, identical, or straight up haunted doppelgängers, twins and doubles have been an indelible part of noir going back to the beginning, and now, we want your take. Give us something sly, something mysterious, something we’re not actually sure we’re seeing. And remember, at STONE’S THROW, even if it looks exactly the same, it’s never actually what it appears to be.

I HATE TO SPOIL THE END OF CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE, THE PRESTIGE, BUT . . .


Everyone has wasted a random Tuesday afternoon watching ghost-hunting shows. Morons in fake glasses and too real cameras trying to record something that can’t be seen. But what if they actually recorded something real? What if they accidentally caught something worth killing over? This month, we want to know what happens when ghost hunters stumble over the scene of the crime. We want to see what happens when fresh blood is spilled in old haunted houses. We want to be scared not by what goes bump in the night, but instead what goes bang.

ZAK BAGANS BETTER SHUT HIS FUCKING MOUTH

DOES THIS MASK ACTUALLY CAPTURE MY REVOLUTIONARY SPIRT AS INTENDED?
A couple hundred years ago, a Catholic extremist tried to blow up the House of Lords with stacks of hidden dynamite. Since then, Guy Fawkes has become an icon and a symbol, appearing in legendary graphic novels, pretty okay movies, and on the faces of Internet hackers mocking the rich and powerful. This month, we want stories of the Fawkesian impulse, and so we’re looking for stories of revolutionaries, rebels, agitators, and terrorists. Show us what happens when their good plans go bad, or their bad plans go worse. Give them a noble cause or a despicable one. Show us what happens when the revolution comes and the flag is planted. And then show us whose chest that flag is planted in.

DOES THIS MASK ACTUALLY CAPTURE MY REVOLUTIONARY SPIRT AS INTENDED?

BING CROSBY WAS A LYING BASTARD AND WE’RE GLAD HE’S DEAD
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” right? Well not here at STONE’S THROW, and, we’re guessing, not wherever you are either. The demands. The wants. The needs. The bills. The pressure. Everything feels ten times heavier in December. Everything feels ten times tougher to move. In other words, everything feels perfect for STONE’S THROW. This month, we want your stories of holiday pressures and holiday rage. This month, we want to see what happens when the pressure becomes too much. This month, we want to see what happens when someone dreaming of a white Christmas is suddenly unable to see anything other than red.

BING CROSBY WAS A LYING BASTARD AND WE’RE GLAD HE’S DEAD

PROMISES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN AND BLED UPON
It’s a new year, and with it comes all kinds of promises. Promises to be better. To clean up. To find new, happier ways of living. But this is STONE’S THROW, and we know a promise is something made to be broken. This month, we want stories of betrayal. Of promises made and then broken. Make the betrayal hurt. Make it STONE’S THROW.

Stone's Throw [Rock and a Hard Place Press]

Highlights

About