the engine(idling is an independent online literary journal founded and run as a one-person operation by Pennsylvania-based poet Danielle McMahon, whose own work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. The journal publishes themed issues of poetry and visual art — including collage, photography, drawing, illustration, and mixed media — in PDF format, with all issues free to read, download, and share. Named after a run-on love poem McMahon wrote in an undergraduate poetry class, the journal has a warm, community-oriented ethos and a strong identity around experimental, craft-driven, and formally adventurous work. It also runs an annual micro-chapbook programme, a Dashboard Awards scheme that celebrates standout work published elsewhere by past contributors, and a Readers’ Choice Award. Issues have explored themed concepts such as collage, and the upcoming Issue #9 is dedicated entirely to collaborative work.

Submissions of 1–4 poems and/or visual art pieces are accepted by email at no charge, with a typical response time of one month or less. The journal welcomes experimental, hybrid, surreal, absurdist, and formally inventive poetry in all its shapes, including erasures, found poems, prose poems, and work that defies easy categorisation — but has no interest in AI-generated content, saccharine writing, or intentionally hateful material. Simultaneous submissions are fine with prompt notification; previously published work is considered only if it appeared in a now-defunct publication. No payment is currently offered, though the editor sends free swag to all submitters worldwide and nominates contributors for Pushcart, Best of the Net, and the Monarch Queer Literary Awards. Newsletter subscribers receive a two-week head start on submission calls.