Abraxas Review is a literary magazine whose editorial statement reads less like a call for submissions than a manifesto against affectation. The journal seeks poetry, prose, and visual art that 'cracks the egg'—work with arresting emotional impact achieved not through contrived figurative language but through surprise in service of a larger purpose. For Issue 4, the editors turn their attention specifically to fiction, inviting short stories that are authentic without being performative and experimental without being pretentious. The stated aim is writing that challenges genre and pushes boundaries while remaining inviting and accessible to an everyday reader. The editors articulate three qualities they seek: candor, intellectual rigor, and a third criterion cut off in the provided excerpt. Candor, as they define it, means work from writers unafraid to take an honest look at themselves—vulnerability that creates intimacy and immediacy, with bonus points for humor. This is not a venue for ironic distance or technical display; it is a venue for fiction that speaks to the humanity in all of us. The journal positions itself against the twin traps of the MFA-industrial complex: the contrived and the pretentious. Submissions for Issue 4 close on November 30, 2026. A reading fee of $3.00 USD applies. The journal operates online and remotely, with no physical location or residency component. There is no prize attached to this call; publication in the issue is the reward. Writers should note that the editors explicitly welcome work that gets 'fancy' and 'weird'—but always with purpose. The curatorial vision is coherent and unusually well-articulated: fiction that earns its experiments through emotional truth, not the other way around.