Call for Submissions: Bennington Review

Bennington Review is published twice a year in print form, Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. We aim to stake out a distinctive space for innovative, intelligent, and moving fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, film writing, and cross-genre work. In the spirit of poet Dean Young’s dictum that poets should be “making birds, not birdcages,” we are particularly taken with writing that is simultaneously graceful and reckless.

Unsolicited submissions will only be accepted from November 15th, 2021 to May 8th, 2022. Submissions response times vary, though we aim to respond to most submissions within five to eight months.

We pay contributors $100 for prose of six typeset pages and under, $200 for prose of over six typeset pages, and $20 per poem, in addition to two copies of the issue in which the piece is published and one copy of the subsequent issue.

Work must be previously unpublished in print or online, including on personal blogs. Prose submissions must be double-spaced and paginated. Please include a cover letter with your submission. We welcome simultaneous submissions, as long as you notify us immediately when work has been accepted elsewhere.

We do not accept unsolicited submissions from current or recent students, faculty, or staff of Bennington College. Undergraduate and graduate alumni, as well as past employees of Bennington, are asked to wait a minimum of two years before submitting work to the magazine.

We welcome submissions from established and emerging writers alike. We ask that writers who submit to the journal possess a familiarity with contemporary literature in the genre of their work. Individual genre guidelines are listed below.

Note that we are additionally interested in publishing translations: translators should have permission from the copyright holder and should include a copy of the original work with their submission, regardless of language.

We acquire first North American serial rights for all accepted work. If you have any questions about these guidelines, please email us at benningtonreview@bennington.edu.

Submit your work here.