In the land of Tarot, “The Fool” is Card Zero – the first of the Major Arcana in a deck – and symbolizes an adventurous spirit, a willingness to take risks, living life carefree, on the edge, trusting in the journey. In the literary realm, The Fool’s World is a waystation for travelers wanting to be transported to another new yet familiar place. Readers can enjoy two issues per year of fiction, nonfiction, nonfiction travel flash, poetry, and book reviews. Issues are first published online (via Web Flipbook) and then the issue is published in print and ships out with Raleigh Review.
The Fool’s World is a sister publication to North Carolina-based Raleigh Review, which was founded in 2010 and nurtured into a nonprofit organization that publishes an award-winning literary magazine and offers literary programs to a broad audience. “The Fool’s World was created,” the editors explain, “because the name Raleigh Review is somewhat geographically limiting when trying to land in bookshops out West. The Fool’s World was created to be something very different than Raleigh Review. The Fool’s World is like the independent younger sister who never wanted to marry. The older sibling, Raleigh Review, lived and played by all the societal rules for fifteen years of adulthood and is now newly single at middle age, so The Fool’s World is helping Raleigh Review to venture out more.
“Raleigh Review is tabling events again thanks to the team at The Fool’s World, and The Fool’s World is helping Raleigh Review land in newsstands and in bookshops thanks to the fearless team at The Fool’s World. On the local scene, the GenZers and AlphaGens at The Fool’s World help us at Raleigh Review to get back out into the world post-pandemic, they help us take more risks. The Fool’s World is learning the ways of a somewhat stable life in the literary arts from Raleigh Review.”
A Carefully Crafted Masthead
“At first,” the editors share, “The Fool’s World was a placeholder site for two college magazines [Saint Augustine’s Magazine and Lou Lit] as those magazines had to come off their respective campuses due to tough times. As The Fool’s World was going live online, Raleigh Review was being contacted out of the blue by talented students at other colleges. About the time the magazine was being mapped out, Alex Gast, a Thomas Wolfe Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill, contacted us about interning with Raleigh Review, and we brought him on, telling him about The Fool’s World. The next weeks, Maggie Busch contacted us about working with Raleigh Review in some way, and we brought Maggie on board both magazines. She brought along a super talented visual editor named Evan Bates, and despite us trying to get Evan to do work here and there for Raleigh Review, Evan just want to focus on The Fool’s World. That’s when we really noticed how special The Fool’s World was becoming.
“Arianna is the current intern from UNC Chapel Hill for Raleigh Review and she’s the nonfiction prose editor at The Fool’s World. William Chen is the poetry editor and the lone GenZer as he’s a super talented high school senior. William Chen also works on the Raleigh Review publishing team as an assistant. Raleigh Review is making sure The Fool’s World is getting as strong a distribution as one could get in the first year. The Fool’s World will also be represented at the Raleigh Review table for the NCSU MFA Alumni anniversary gathering in March of 2026.”
Travel Writing Comes Home
For writers, The Fool’s World is open for poetry, prose, and visual art submissions during two annual windows, and “although we are a travel magazine,” the editors encourage, “we recognize ‘travel’ as a broad and deliciously ambiguous term. Submit all kinds of travel writing and visuals, whatever the word means to you!” The team meets virtually and in person to review submission, generally taking 4-6 weeks to respond.
Readers to the publication can expect a magazine “of adventure, of the world,” that they will delight in taking along on their own adventures. The first issue featured the work of visual artists, poetry and nonfiction, with the second issue adding a section called “Immigrant Voices,” which seeks to promote the voices of “travelers tasked with weaving a home from the gnarled branches of unfamiliarity.”
These early contributors include Gerard Sanat, Kali Pezzi, Mark Simpson, Pin Yi Yee, Sam Canney, Sean Bw Partker, Stone Crow, Joshua Walters, Matthew Troyer, Aldo Schwartz, Becca Stickler, Ann Marie Gamble, Marlon Paine, Glenis Moore, William Derge, Carole Greenfield, Madison King, Alina Amin, Rosa Kang, Evan Krebs, April Schackman, Sydney Krantz, Leonardo Rodrigues-Anaya, Marlon Paine, Dustin Chambers, and many more!
Budgeting for Longevity
Budget is a constant consideration for most publications, and presented a challenge that has grown into an even greater symbiotic relationship, as the editors explain, “The Fool’s World is where Raleigh Review decided to put its advertising budget. Instead of spending money on ads in the local papers and trade magazines, Raleigh Review decided to launch its own travel magazine that would help us grow and expand our team while offering some advertising to Raleigh Review in the process. One ad in the local paper costs more than putting together one issue of the magazine, material-wise via online and print. I do want to stress that all of us are volunteers with other responsibilities: work, studies and/or families but we all find time for the magazine work.”
