We always mention we publish ‘dark and trauma lit,’ and it just occurred to us recently that although we’ve been chugging along here for six years this past October, we never really defined what trauma lit actually is.

Dark literature is familiar, and actually includes trauma lit—they overlap, because trauma lit, technically, is dark lit. Dark literature not only encompasses horror, thriller, the speculative and their various subgenres, but any work in any genre that deals with the more sinister side of humanity and contains dark elements.

But trauma literature is less understood. It can be thought of dark lit with some extra oomph, if you will—not in a tangible, physical sense (such as having more gore, for example), but in the intangible, emotional sense. There’s no formal definition, so we decided to take a stab at it. We like to think of it as emotionally intense work in which the reader feels the weight of a painful experience or emotion. Trauma lit can exist in any genre, and isn’t defined by its subject matter, although common topics include long-term illness, disaster, accidents, violence, loss, and psychological fracture. The main thing to keep in mind is that trauma lit favors emotional impact over resolution; its key feature is the sustained intensity in which it tackles suffering and the aftermath.

We don’t exclusively publish trauma lit—we work hard to keep our issues balanced, because trauma lit can get so intense it’s really important to have “lighter” work to give readers a breather. But we’re proud of having published so much of it, and we intend to keep doing so. What we’ve discovered through emails from our readers is that trauma lit can help a reader feel seen, and as we always say in our acceptance letters, if you reach one person, then you’ve done your job as a writer.