I’m pleased to share this interview with Forget Cool co-founders Melissa Fite Johnson and Allison Renner. Forget Cool is an online literary magazine devoted to poetry and creative nonfiction with pop culture at its heart – the music, movies, TV shows, books, games, and other obsessions that shape us. The journal embraces nostalgia, vulnerability, and enthusiasm while rejecting the idea that what we love needs to pass some sort of “cool” test.
If Melissa’s name sounds familiar, she recently contributed the guest post “Why, Building a Palace”: Building Community, Building Forms, about the connections between community, teaching, and writing, as well as the creation of a new poetic form she calls the “lockbox.” That same spirit of community and collaboration comes through in Forget Cool and in Melissa and Allison’s responses below.
Forget Cool’s next reading period runs November 15 – December 15 for its March 2027 issue. Read on to learn more about how the journal got started, what the editors hope to see in submissions, and why they want everyone invited to the pop culture party.
HOPKINSON: How/why was Forget Cool originally started?
MELISSA/ALLISON: Forget Cool owes a huge debt to March Xness, the bracket-style essay writing tournament that introduced founders Allison Renner and Melissa Fite Johnson. We bonded when Melissa selected Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” as the subject of her March Sadness 90s essay, and Allison commented that the song had her in a chokehold growing up. She had the flute sheet music for it! And oh my goodness, Melissa played the flute in high school! We were off.
Throughout the tournament in March 2026, we were struck by how much we especially loved the essays that weren’t at all concerned with being cool—the essays that focused on a deep love for a particular song, no matter what others thought about that song. This made us want to create a whole journal where people wrote about their pop culture passions—with nostalgia and emotion and vulnerability, not taste-making, as their guide.
HOPKINSON: Who is your target reader audience?
MELISSA/ALLISON: We believe poetry and creative nonfiction are for everyone. Sometimes the only people who read lit mags are writers, and while of course we want writers to read us, we’re also hoping to reach nonwriters. Pop culture is—or at least it should be—such a beautiful antidote to gatekeeping. We hope people check us out because they heard we published an essay about The NeverEnding Story or a couple of poems about pro wrestling. We want to be a place for anyone who has ever felt on the outside of the writing community. We want to be a place where everyone is welcome, and we can geek out together over our shared loves.
HOPKINSON: What types of work are you looking for in submissions?
MELISSA/ALLISON: We don’t like the term “guilty pleasure” because that implies that the only pop culture passions we should be proud of are the ones that pass some sort of “cool” litmus test. We want full-hearted essays and poems about the music, movies, TV shows, books, games, etc. that have shaped you.
We love when we relate to the poetry and essays submitted to us, but we especially love when we can’t. We’re looking for pieces that firmly reinforce what makes us passionate about pop culture—it connects us in the most powerful ways, through nostalgia and youth and figuring out who we are, while also informing us about our different lived experiences and backgrounds and interests.
HOPKINSON: What do you wish you’d see submitted, but rarely comes in?
MELISSA/ALLISON: Though we’ve only had one submission period so far, we’d love to see pieces more generally about pop culture/monoculture, without a strict focus on specific musicians/bands, TV shows, movies—though we love that too! We would also like to stress how important inclusivity is to us, in every sense of the word. While we are close in age and therefore have an aesthetic based on the teen mags of our youth, we want submissions from people of all ages, all backgrounds, all experiences. Our whole point is to invite everyone to the party.
HOPKINSON: What are some of your favorite lit mags/journals?
ALLISON: Claudine, Gooseberry Pie, South Florida Poetry Journal, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute
MELISSA: Whale Road Review, The Account, Asterales, SWWIM, HAD, Villain Era Lit
HOPKINSON: What is your favorite part of being on staff with Forget Cool?
ALLISON: How FUN it is! Behind the scenes, I love working with a friend who’s compatible but also brings so much to the table in different ways that everything feels manageable and well-rounded. Outwardly, I love the joy of people who “get it” sharing their passions with us and our audience, and trusting us with their work.
Back when we teased our first issue by listing all the pop culture references that would appear in it, a contributor said he wanted to know who wrote those pieces to see why he wasn’t already friends with them, and I said, “Thinking we need to revise our submission guidelines to say that once you submit to us, we’re *friends* because all these obsessions are fantastic!”
MELISSA: I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly the reason this has been such a wonderful experience, and I think it’s just that I have felt completely myself throughout this process. I don’t even mean that I’m “myself” in some idealistic way. Sometimes I’m actively obsessing or overthinking—but I know Allison won’t mind if I do that, and she knows I won’t mind if she does. We work so well together, and our visions for this lit mag have been totally aligned. Forget Cool is completely authentic, completely “us,” and that’s why people responding to it feels so special.
HOPKINSON: Where can we send submissions?
MELISSA/ALLISON: Guidelines are on https://forget.cool/submissions/ and submissions are sent to forgetcoolsubmissions@gmail.com.
HOPKINSON: If someone has a question, how can they contact you?
MELISSA/ALLISON: forgetcoolsubmissions@gmail.com, on Bluesky or Instagram.
HOPKINSON: Is there anything exciting coming up you’d like to mention?
MELISSA/ALLISON: Our second reading period is from November 15 through December 15, 2026, for our March 2027 issue. We’re so excited to see what people share with us!
Click here to read submission guidelines.
- SUBMISSION DEADLINE: December 15, 2026
- Submission periods: November 15 to December 15 for our March issue, June 15 to July 15 for our September issue.
- THEME(S): Every piece should have pop culture at its heart. We only ask that you forget cool when you send us your essays and poems about the movies, shows, music, books, games, etc. that have shaped you. Send us emotion, vulnerability, obsessions, nostalgia!
- FORMAT: We’re an online lit mag, and instead of organizing work by genre, we lean into our aesthetic—the teen mags of our youth—when arranging issues. You’ll find original poems (highlighted in pink) and creative nonfiction (highlighted in orange) about music, TV, movies, and more. The “bonus track” in each issue will be our only reprint; as a nod to how we met, we’ll republish a March Xness essay that we feel perfectly encapsulates our mission statement. (We’re open to suggestions of Xness essays to showcase in future issues!)
- SUBMISSION FEE: None
- PAYMENT: At this time, we’re not a paying market, but rest assured that reading issues and submitting work won’t cost a single dollar of your hard-earned babysitting fortune!
- ISSUE FREQUENCY: Twice a year, March and September
- AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME: We aim to respond within a month of our submission window closing.
- SUBMISSION METHOD: Email
- SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Yes
- FORMS: Creative Nonfiction, Poetry
- LISTINGS: Duotrope
- SOCIAL MEDIA: Bluesky, Instagram
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