Call for Submissions of Hybrid Writing: Arkana Magazine

How to Submit – The Hybrid Issue

We seek unpublished work by established and emerging writers unaffiliated with the University of Central Arkansas.

“Hey, you got peanut butter in my chocolate!”

Two things become immediately better as one. Arkana is putting together its Hybrid issue and is looking for submissions! We want your prose poems, your cross-genre work, and your all around experimental and unclassifiable writing.

• Hybrids could include (but are not limited to): Cross-Genre/Multimedia works

• Experimental works

• Performance pieces/video essays/sonic pieces/visual poetry

• Prose poetry/flash fiction/flash nonfiction

• Autofiction

• Anything else that doesn’t fit the traditional bounds of creative writing genres!

Our submission guidelines for this issue:

– Up to 3 short pieces (in a single submission) or 1 piece no more than 20 pages.
– For this issue only: you may submit more than one piece, as long as they are different forms of hybrid.
– Include a cover letter with a brief bio and a brief description of what makes your work hybrid.

If you have pieces in more traditional genres and forms, consider saving them for the Fall 2025 submission window. We will only be accepting submissions that classify as hybrids for this special issue of Arkana Magazine. 

Submit your work here.

Writing Competitions: Sand Hills Literary Magazine

Please include only three poems per submission. All work must be typed (preferably in 12 point, Times New Roman), and single-spaced (not  including stanza breaks). Include the title of your work on your manuscript.  Do not include any identification or contact information on your manuscript, or in the file name. We do not accept previously published poetry (including self-published material in print or online at personal blogs, social media, or websites). Finalists will be selected and chosen by Sand Hills Staff.  

The winner will win $500.

Entry Fee: $12.00

Contributors should include only one short story or essay per submission. Please only send us one submission per reading period. Each short story or essay may be up to 5,000 words in length. All work must be typed (preferably in 12 point, Times New Roman), double-spaced, and paginated. Include the title of your work and the total word count on your manuscript. Do not include any identification or contact information on your manuscript, or in the file name. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in disqualification. We do not accept previously published prose (including self-published material in print or online at personal blogs, social media, or websites). Finalists will be selected and chosen by Sand Hills Staff.  

The winner will receive a $500 prize.

Entry Fee: $12.00

Deadline for both prose and poetry competitions: March 1, 2025. 

Submit your entry here. 

Call for Poetry Submissions: Rattle

Thanks for sharing your work with Rattle! All of our content comes from unsolicited submissions—we couldn't exist without you, and we want this process to be as easy and friendly as possible. For more information, see our full guidelines page.

Overview: Rattle publishes unsolicited poetry, translations, and book reviews.

• General submissions are open year-round, always welcomed, and always free.

• Rattle does not accept work that has been previously curated, in print or online—poems may be self-published on social media, blogs, or message boards, but cannot have been published in books, magazines, or similar collections open to the public. We want to be the first publisher to highlight the poems, but never want to discourage anyone from sharing their poems themselves. For more on this, read "Uncurated: The Case for a New Term of Art."

• Rattle does not accept work that has been predominantly generated by artificial intelligence. Poetry is a tool for expanding the human spirit, which means poems should be written by humans. It is possible to use A.I. toward that aim in some cases, so if used A.I. to assist in the writing process, please explain in the notes to your submission.

• Simultaneous submissions are encouraged.

• Contributors to the print magazine receive $200 and a complimentary one-year subscription. Poems for "Online" categories receive $100.

• All submissions are automatically considered for the annual Neil Postman Award for Metaphor, a $2,000 prize judged by the editors.

VERY IMPORTANT:

• Submissions cannot be revised after submission. Note that typos and minor changes never affect our decisions—proofreading is what editors are for. If you've made a significant mistake, use the internal messaging system to send a new file as an attachment.

• To withdraw a single poem from a submission of multiple poems, just log in, click on the submission, and send a message to let us know which you'd like removed. Do not withdraw the entire submission—if you do, the submission will no longer be active and we won't see it.

• Don't include any contact information in the file(s) that you submit. Your name and contact info will be included in the Submittable fields, and this will make it easier for us to read fairly.

For more detailed information about rights, rules, privacy, and payments for publication, see our full guidelines.

NOTE: Please don't query to ask if we have a reply to your submission yet. If the status says "received" or "in-progress," then it's received and in-progress. We always go as fast as we can, but we're only human and the submission flow waxes and wanes, so response times vary considerably. 

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: 100-Foot Crow

What do we want? Speculative fiction (science fiction or fantasy) Note: We accept horror, but it must have a speculative element, whether science fiction or fantasy.

Drabbles (100-word stories EXACTLY) Note: We calculate word count using Microsoft Word. If using Google Docs, please manually count your words. It has a truly baffling definition of a word (e.g., “1,000” = 2 words).

Actual, complete stories Even though they’re only 100-words, drabbles still need all the essential elements of a story: character, setting, conflict, theme, and plot.

What do we NOT want? 

• Child abuse (of any type)

• Erotica

• Rape

• Revenge stories

• Hateful content

All the details

Simultaneous submissions: Yes! Go crazy. Submit everywhere! But if it is accepted elsewhere, please let us know.

Response time: Responses will be within 60 days. Please query after this time.

Multiple submissions: You may submit two stories per submissions period.

Note: Only one story will be accepted per author per period.

Reprints: Nope. Stories many not be previously published in any format (including on your blog, Patreon, etc.).

Formatting: Please format italics with surrounding _underscores_. You do not need to add indents or manual line breaks.

AI use: No. All work must be original and yours. Using AI or plagiarizing will get you banned forever. No redemption arc will be possible.

Contract terms: We require first worldwide English electronic rights with a 90-day exclusivity period.

Compensation: $8.00 ($0.08 per word) via PayPal.

Acceptance rate: We accept about 4% of submissions. Because of the high volume of submissions, we are unable to provide personal feedback.

Hard sells: The following are hard sells for our magazine: 

• Myth and fairy tale retellings

• Stories where the characters are real historical figures or from classic literature

• Holiday stories

• Stories where aliens destroy Earth (especially if the motive is that humans are deemed too violent)

• Stories where the resolution is an unexpected murder in the last line

• Screenplay format

• Stories where the speculative element could be removed without changing the story

But if you have a unique take on any of these that you think would knock our socks off, don’t be afraid to send it along!

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions to Anthology: Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved and Insane: Nostalgic Terror

Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved and Insane: Nostalgic Terrors
Edited by Wendy Dalrymple and Grace R. Reynolds

What We Are Seeking
A pinch of poetry, a dash of drabbles, a frisson of flash fiction… mix well together in a cauldron of nostalgia and what do you get?

A recipe that's dastardly, delectable, and pure poison.

Welcome to Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved and Insane, an anthology like no other designed to inspire, soothe, and satisfy the dark hearts of Horror lovers everywhere.

The genre stirs a sense of nostalgia for us all, through vintage television hits like Tales from the Crypt and Elvira’s Movie Macabre, to famed comics such as Adventures into Terror and Weird Tales. Give us your nightmares, your childhood frights, your sleepaway camp mysteries. Tell us how Clive Barker tricked you into a ride on The Midnight Meat Train or which episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark made you sleep with the light on. When you stare into the shadows, what do you see? What whispers and caresses your ears with shadowy tendrils? Where does your mind go as you conjure unimaginable apparitions just beyond your reach?

We want to know… when did Horror take root for you?

Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved, and Insane: Nostalgic Terrors is a collection of original fiction, poems, and essays where new and seasoned horror writers recount their first experiences with the genre. A mix of terror, inspiration, comfort, and reassurance, this anthology offers a powerful experience for those who seek to create and consume stories that transcend the page.

Submission Window
December 14, 2024 - December 31, 2024

Submit to:

poisonedsoup@brigidsgatepress.com

Word Count
Poems: Up to 32 lines
Drabbles: 100 words
Flash Fiction: 500-1000 words
Non-Fiction: Up to 1k words

Payment
8¢ per word for prose
$50 per poem or drabble
Paid via PayPal, along with an ebook contributor’s copy of the anthology

Please Do Not Send
Absolutely no AI. Anyone caught submitting AI written material will be boiled in our cauldron.
No graphic rape/sexual assault scenes.
No splatterpunk, extreme horror or toilet humor.
Please use your best judgment!

Reprints
No

Simultaneous Submissions
Yes

Multiple Submissions
No

Additional Information
The anthology will be a mix of 25% solicited stories and 75% stories selected from the open call submission period.

This anthology is open to all writers, but we strongly encourage writers from the LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and other marginalized communities to submit.

*Each submission will be received through a third party and assigned a number to allow for blind readings by the editors. No nepotism here, horror friends!

More information and submission link here.

Call for Submissions: The Meadow

The Meadow publishes work each summer from beginning and experienced writers and artists. We are one of the few literary journals in the country that publishes our students alongside writers such as Campbell McGrath, Robert Wrigley, Kim Barnes, Michael Branch, Toni Graham, Bob Hicok, Joe Wilkins, Alyson Hagy, David Kirby, Joseph Fasano, Susan Deer Cloud, Khaled Hosseini, Susan Gubernat, Adrian C. Louis, Lisa Lewis, Donald Revell, and Ellen Hopkins.

Writing from The Meadow has been reprinted in the Utne Reader. We have received a special mention in poetry from the Pushcart Prize anthology, and John Gifford’s essay, “Decoy,” was selected as a “Notable Essay” in both The Best American Sports Writing anthology and The Best American Essay anthology of 2019.

We are also a 100% free journal. Issues are free on campus and distributed freely around the Reno area. If we accept your work for publication, payment is two free copies.

Between Aug. 15 and Jan. 15 of each year, we accept poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and cover artwork.

All submissions must be uploaded through our submission manager system

 Submission Guidelines

We welcome submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and cover artwork. Your name may not appear anywhere on the pieces submitted, as we review all submissions without names.

All submissions must be accompanied by contact information (name, address, telephone and email) and a brief (less than 50 words) biography; include the title(s) of each piece submitted.

We do not accept previously published work, but we will consider simultaneous submissions and expect to be notified immediately of acceptance elsewhere.

We will accept up to five poems, photos or art pieces, or one work of prose (fiction or nonfiction) from each author or artist. Prose may not exceed 5,000 words.

Writing Competition: Ellen Meloy Grant for Desert Writers

There is a $15 fee to apply. The application requires a project proposal, a biographical statement, and a writing sample of no more than 10 pages. Please submit all materials in one document.

If your application contains any identifying information (name, web links, article citations, bibliographical data, etc.) we will ask you to revise your application and resubmit. The resubmitted application must still reach us by midnight on January 15. Thank you for following the award guidelines to ensure the integrity and fairness of our selection process.

Please note: The submission confirmation you see after hitting the submit button (and please only click it ONCE) is the ONLY confirmation you will receive. You will be notified in early spring of this year's winner and finalists.

SUBMISSIONS OPEN NOVEMBER 1. Submit by January 15 to be considered for a $5,000 grant. 

GRANT GUIDELINES

The Ellen Meloy Fund for Desert Writers grants one $5,000 award in the spring of each year. Only proposals for literary or creative nonfiction book projects will be considered. No fiction or poetry proposals will be reviewed.

 The Fund supports writing that combines an engaging individual voice, literary sensibility, imagination and intellectual rigor to bring new perspectives and deeper meaning to the body of desert literature. All applications will be reviewed through a peer-panel process.

Considerations in the selection process will be:

• the writing sample’s artistic excellence and desert literacy,

• the strength of the proposed book project,

• the biography’s ability to demonstrate a history and future of writing and desert experience.

• We encourage emerging, mid-career or established writers in the field of literary nonfiction to apply

• Financial and other kinds of need, the body of past work, geographic location of the applicant, academic career, professional reputation, etcetera, are not criteria for receipt of a grant.

We do NOT fund:

• Individuals who have received an Ellen Meloy Grant within the last five years

• Poetry or fiction proposals

• Children's literature

More information and application forms here.

Call for Travel Writing: Wanderlust Journal

Wanderlust Journal--Call for Travel Writing

What’s more fascinating than reading about other lifestyles and landscapes?

DID YOU KNOW? Learning about other cultures, peoples, and places through travel opens our minds and empathy. Travel demonstrates how we as humans are so similar in so many ways. So whether you’re lucky enough to get out there yourself, or you’re looking for inspiration and connection, then think of us, and write for us.

We’re scheduling monthly publications for the upcoming year and we want to hear from YOU! Ideally your work should be 750-1500 words with 3-5 good resolution photos or sketches.

Although there are no reading or submission fees, donations are greatly appreciated.

Call for Submissions from Healthcare Providers and Patients on Theme of "What If?": Please See Me

 

General Guidelines

We seek previously unpublished, creative, and high-quality work in the form of poetry, creative nonfiction/essays, fiction/short stories/flash fiction, scripts and digital media (photography, drawings, podcasts, and short films). Patients, students, family members, caregivers, nurses, physicians, healthcare consumers, artists, mental health providers, physical therapists, writers, clergy—all of us will be patients one day and all are welcome to submit work. We are especially looking for content from vulnerable populations and those who care for them; content that connects us with every community, makes us feel something, helps us see illness, wellness, health, or the healthcare environment differently, and inspires equality in healthcare and the world.

Theme Guidelines: What if?

In September of 2024, I attended the Patients for Patient Safety World Patient Safety Day in Washington DC. This dedicated group of patient advocates and activists are working hard to push policy and change forward that protects patients and providers in our US healthcare system. The organization created a short video entitled What if? capturing personal stories highlighting how their health outcomes and lives were affected by healthcare systems that failed to deliver the appropriate care, and which inspires the theme for 2025 Issue #16.

What is your “What if?” or “If only…” related to your health-related stories. What if you had asked the next question of your provider even as their back was turned and walking out the door?
What if you had taken the extra moment with a patient and not missed that diagnosis?
What if you had asked for help in your third year of medical school? In residency?
What if you had spoken up when you witnessed bullying or inappropriate leadership?
What if you had told your partner you loved them before they left for work?
What if you shared the joy you experienced when care did go as planned?

The canvas here is wide and deep and the theme is a jumping off point. Paint with the words and images that ring true to you! We look forward to seeing what our audience of writers, patients, physicians, psychologists, patient advocates, artists, and healthcare consumers have to say! Every one of your stories matter to us. We are listening!

Deadline: Jan. 13, 2025 

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Gravity": Notch: a literary and arts magazine

Notch: A Literary and Arts Magazine call for submissions on theme of "Gravity."

Gravity wears many faces. We feel it in moments, see it in the tides, remember it when pulled into people’s orbit. The ebbs and flows of creative inspiration are well known to artists—muses appear as though in response to mysterious cosmic forces entirely out of our control.

The transition from Newtonian gravity to Einstein's theory of General Relativity marked a profound shift in our understanding of the universe. Gravity was no longer seen as a force exerted by masses on the background of unchanging space and time. Rather, it became an emergent property of the curvature of spacetime, challenging notions of constancy and objectivity.

Gravity is the language of the relational: any two beings in the universe are connected through the fabric of spacetime. Its abstract power looms large in the interpersonal. We each have experiences that feel denser than others; moments whose weight eclipses their duration on a clock or calendar. In some cases, we find ourselves orbiting a past experience, our lives resisting the inevitable march from past to future as life’s timeline metamorphoses into a parabola. As with any planet, the gravitational force of these moments gets weaker with distance, but distance is not easily achieved. Once we are in orbit, a third presence with mass and energy is needed to break free and achieve escape velocity.

While Einstein’s theory explained macroscopic movements, quantum mechanics developed to describe the behavior of particles at subatomic scales. To this day, these two theories exist on parallel planes and have resisted all attempts for unification.

In this issue, Notch is interested in exploring this space of the ununifiable. Please share works that honor the strange and mysterious, exploring themes of weight, time distortion, singularity, wormholes, and light.

We are looking for new and strange, excellent and mystifying, sharp. Send us work that sparks imaginative discourse, ideas to take our breath away and mull over for days to come.

Literary
Previously unpublished fiction exploring asymmetrical orbits, poetry playing with density, essays rescuing excellent works from obscurity, comparative criticism stitching together unexpected forms…

A thoughtful connection to the theme is much appreciated.

First serial considerations are welcome. Works in translation are encouraged.

Pieces up to 1500 words are preferred. Longer work is considered on occasion.

Visual
Photographs that distort their centers, brushstrokes with unexpected velocity, sculptures that call upon the sediment from which they came, textiles that mirror spacetime, collages that clash the micro and macroscopic, film that warps the curvature of light...

Or something completely different.

Please send a high resolution image of your art along with its specs. Artist statement optional.

Other
Dance that anchors in air, floral arrangements morphing through time and space, tattoo flash sheets that spark momentum, mathematical equations illustrating how black holes scramble causality, set lists that nail the drop, a puppet show whose pacing defies the insistent pull of gravity...

Please send a link or a high resolution image or audio file. Artist statement optional.

Submissions close January 6, 2025

Contributors will be compensated

To submit, email your work and a
brief bio to:

submissions@notch.ink

Writing Competition: Furious Flower Poetry Prize

Submissions for the 2025 Furious Flower Poetry Prize will be accepted December 15, 2024 - February 15, 2025.

Furious Flower invites submissions from emerging writers for its annual poetry prize. Poets with no more than one published book are invited to submit up to three poems (no more than a total of 6 pages) for consideration. The winner and honorable mention receive $1500 and $750 respectively and will be invited to read James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va in September 2025. The winner, honorable mention, and finalists will also be published in Obsidian. Winners are announced in April.

Submission fee: $15.

2025 Judge: aracelis girmay

aracelis girmay is the author of three books of poems for which she was a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Her most recent work is the chapbook and was a flower, made in collaboration with book artist Valentina Améstica. Her newest full-length collection will be out with BOA Editions in the fall. Other recent work has been published in Astra, The Paris Review online, and e-flux. girmay curated How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton and served as the editor of So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket, 2023). She is currently completing her last year in her editor-at-large role for the Blessing the Boats Selections. girmay is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund.

Submit your entry here.

Call for Submissions: Beaver Magazine

General submissions are OPEN.

Please read the submission guidelines before heading over to submit.

You can send us your work here:

https://beavermag.submittable.com/submit 

Please only submit through submittable! No email submissions will be accepted.

We take poetry, flash fiction and nonfiction, hybrid works, art and anything else you have to offer during our open reading periods. We celebrate and yearn for work from LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC.

Any questions or concerns can be directed to our email:

thebeaversubmissions@gmail.com

Our response time is usually around a month or two. Feel free to inquire about the status of your submission after three months have passed!

We want work that’s fluid and funky, connected and coiling. We love work on how we shape the land and how the land shapes us. We want an intimate distance that pulls you in and doesn‘t let go. We want a beaver dam of a piece that keeps the perfect amount of water in, art we can build with and live in for years to come. Help us form this creative landscape with your lovely work. Be sure to check out our recent issue for an idea of what we like to publish!

Beaver Magazine now publishes three regular issues a year:

The Winter Issue: November 30th, Open for submissions July 15th-September 30th

The Spring Issue: March 20th, Open for submissions November 15th-February 15th

The Fall Issue: August 30th, Open for submissions April 30th-July 30th

We are completely open to simultaneous submissions, please just notify us either by withdrawing the submission or sending us a message to withdraw individual pieces from a submission.

If you submit and it just isn’t the right fit for us, feel free to send work again as soon as you’d like. Only one submission per genre is permitted at a time. No previously published work will be considered.

Beaver Magazine retains First North American Serial Rights for all work that we publish. Upon publication, all rights are reverted back to the author. The work may be republished with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in Beaver Magazine.

When submitting your work, please include a title and cover letter with a brief, updated third-person biography. Manuscripts should be in a .doc or .docx format.

Poetry: 3-5 poems of any format, each beginning on a new page. We love work that plays with traditional forms and modes. We want the lyric, the narrative, and everything in between.

Prose: Up to 3 flash pieces of no more than 1,000 words each (though we do prefer brevity). Creative nonfiction can include personal, research, or lyric essays as well as memoirs. Fiction can be of any genre or style. Hybrid work can be whatever you want it to be! Please clearly state in which of the three prose genres you are submitting in your cover letter and include page numbers and a word count on the document.

Art: Up to 10 pieces of visual art of any media or style, submitted either in pdf format or as individual jpegs. Please try to submit work with high resolution so if it is published, we can take in all its glory.

Previous contributors are welcome to send work as early as the next submission period after their work appears on the website. No preference will be given to former contributors.

Call for Submissions: Loft Books

Loft Books call for submissions:

We are open for submissions for our next issue (Issue VII) on any theme. All work must be completely free of violence in order to be accepted. Please format work in a Word doc and email us at:

loftbooksltd@gmail.com 

• Poetry (42 lines or less) £20

• Flash Fiction (500 words or less) £30

• Short Stories (3000 words or less) £50

Call for Submissions: SPOOKY Magazine

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Cozy horror. Fun horror. Classy horror. Dare we say, wholesome horror?

Oxymoron? We don’t think so. One place you can start your exploration of this idea is an article from Nightmare Magazine penned by one of our co-founders.

But perhaps the easiest way to understand what we mean is to read stories by some of the old masters we love: Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Roald Dahl. Watch classic episodes of Thriller, The Twilight Zone, and Night Gallery. Read old horror comics. Listen to radio dramas like Suspense, Quiet, Please, and Inner Sanctum Mysteries. Consume enough vintage horror, and you’ll probably begin to get an idea of the type of thing that’s likely to appeal to us.

In short, we’re looking to provide a space for a type of storytelling that has largely gone out of style – dark and scary, but playful and approachable with an emphasis on plot. For a concrete example of the kind of thing we’re likely to love, grab a copy of one of our issues.

To clarify further, here’s a list of things we want and things we don’t, which may help you hit the sweet spot.

THINGS WE LOVE:

• Stories with a moral core. It need not happen in every tale, but we like to see good prevail (or at least evil punished). Ironic justice, in which cleverly nasty things happen to bad people, as in old EC comics, makes us chuckle with ghoulish delight.

• Well-earned twist endings. There’s nothing we love more than a really good surprise or a clever way to subvert our expectations. Pull the rug out from under us and leave us gasping.

• High concept settings and situations reminiscent of the pulps. Androids, ghosts, aliens, old castles, vampires, dinosaurs, deals with the devil, mad scientists, Wild West gunslingers, and so on. All are welcome. Give us thrilling adventures dipped in the macabre. Remember – old tropes are great, so long as your story is doing something new with them.

• Tales of the fantastic invading ordinary settings. Bring terrible and unpredictable horrors into the suburbs, into our workplaces, into our homes.

• Magical realism. Don’t worry too much about explaining how or why strange things happen. We are perfectly willing to accept that they do and move on to the good stuff in the story.

• Playfulness and dark humor. We’re not looking for blatant comedy, but a certain level of mischief and glee will go a long way in making your story a fit for SPOOKY.

• Classic Americana. Halloweeny hijinks. Campfire stories. Stuff that makes us feel like kids.

NO THANK YOU:

• Grimdark nihilism that leaves us feeling hopeless.

• Trope rehashes that fail to add an imaginative twist.

• Floaty, dream-like milieus without a clear plot. We are fine with surreal occurrences, but things need to actually happen in your story.

• Hard science fiction.

• Sword and Sorcery or second-world fantasy.

• Poetry (With the exception of horror haiku, see instructions near the bottom of our submission guidelines).

• Excessive gore. A certain level of violence is to be expected, but we’re not a market for extreme horror. Less is pretty much always more when it comes to violent content here – we’re big fans of stories that imply rather than describe gruesome situations.

• Excessive obscenities. We won’t lose our minds over an occasional “hell” or “damn,” but that’s about our limit. Keep it pretty much PG.

• Graphic sex. Again, keep it PG. Any sexual acts important to your story should be implied, rather than described.

• Kidlit. Even though we like fiction that is relatively family friendly in terms of content, children aren’t our primary audience. We aren’t Goosebumps, Scooby Doo, or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Don’t send us stories about eleven year olds investigating werewolf sightings at their school playground.

• Absolutely no abuse, violence, or sexual situations involving children.

• Absolutely no racism, misogyny, or homophobia. Although we are going for a retro vibe with this magazine, we can keep what we love about old fiction while rejecting its pitfalls. SPOOKY is committed to treating all people with respect.

We shouldn’t need to say this, but…

ALL STORIES MUST BE WRITTEN BY A HUMAN BEING. IF WE SUSPECT A STORY OR ANY PART OF A STORY WAS WRITTEN USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, IT WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY REJECTED.

RIGHTS AND PAYMENT

SPOOKY Magazine seeks First Publication Rights in English, with six-months exclusivity from date of publication, nonexclusive thereafter, with the option to reprint stories in a possible “best of” anthology sometime in the future. We pay 1 cent per word, via PayPal, for original fiction. All accepted fiction authors will also receive a print contributor’s copy of the issue in which their story appears.

SPOOKY does not accept reprints at this time. Authors retain copyright to their work.

SPOOKY is not purchasing artwork at this time.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

All stories for SPOOKY should shoot to be 5000 words or fewer. If you’re over by a hundred or so, we won’t mind, but please don’t send us anything much longer. Shorter fiction usually serves our purposes better (and allows us to pack more stories into each issue), with a sweet spot of about 2500 or 3000 words.

SPOOKY publishes two issues each year, in print – a spring/summer issue in April and a fall/winter issue in October. Our submission periods are November-December for stories to be considered for our spring/summer issue and May-June for stories to be considered for our fall/winter issue. Any fiction sent outside these windows will be rejected unread.

Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if your story is accepted elsewhere. We ask that authors only send us 1 story per submission window.

We aren’t super picky about this, but we prefer stories to be presented in some approximation of the Shunn Manuscript Format.

Please send all submissions to:

spookymagazineinfo [at] gmail [dot] com (Change [at] to @ and [dot] to . )

with the subject heading SUBMISSION: Story Title / Author Name.

HORROR HAIKU!

SPOOKY also considers horror-themed haiku poems. Because of haiku’s brief format, which lends itself to snappy punchlines, these can (but don’t need to) be a bit jokier than the fiction we’re generally after, leaning even into horror comedy territory.

We do not pay for haiku (sorry), but any authors who have haiku accepted and published in the magazine will receive a free digital pdf of the issue and their name included as a credit.

Please don’t send more than 3 haiku for us to consider at a time.

Please send all haiku submissions to:

spookymagazineinfo [at] gmail [dot] com (Change [at] to @ amd [dot] to . )

with the subject heading HAIKU / Author Name.

Call for Submissions: Short Story, Long

Short stories, 2k-8k words long (with the 3,000-5,500 range being our real sweet spot).

What are we looking for? Honestly, best indicator is to read a story or two we've already published. Second best indicator is to generally be familiar with Aaron's taste and what he's published on HAD, and Hobart before that.

Every published story will be paired with original art, and I am paying both writer and artist $100. (Becoming a paid subscriber helps pay contributors!)
https://ashortstorylong.substack.com/ 

Submissions will be open until the end of December. 

Please only submit once per submission period.

Thanks!
  —Aaron Burch

Submit your work here.

Call for Proposals on Theme of "Celebrating Historical FIction in Its Many Forms": Historical Novel Society

Call for Proposals for In-person Sessions: June 26-28, Las Vegas, NV
Submissions Open December 15, 2024 thru January 15, 2025

Thank you for your interest in submitting a proposal to present at #HNS2025. Our eleventh conference will be an in-person conference with all four mainstage session rooms also being livestreamed for virtual attendees and recorded for subsequent viewing by all attendees for a limited time.

Please review our new guidelines and FAQs carefully.
The Theme for #HNS2025: Celebrating Historical Fiction in Its Many Forms

At this year’s conference, HNS will celebrate the many subgenres of historical fiction. Each distinct form views history through its own lens with unique literary conventions to amplify stories, themes, and emotions. Join us as we explore the ways authors, agents, and editors craft, publish, and market these various subgenres, and let’s revel in the wide array of historical novels we all love to read! These are only some of the historical fiction subgenres we hope to explore at this year’s conference: 

Adventure Fiction
Alternate (Alternative) History
Biographical Fiction
Family Saga
Gothic Fiction
Historical Erotica
Historical Fantasy
Historical Horror
Historical Mystery/Police Procedural
Historical Romance
Historical Thriller/Suspense
Military Fiction
Narrative Nonfiction
Nautical Fiction
Steampunk
Time Travel/Time Slip

More information and submission form here.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Eclipsed Ecologies": Sage Magazine

Sage Magazine

We are excited to announce our 2025 Print Edition theme:

Eclipsed Ecologies

Tree roots, deep sea, dreams, nighttime pollinators – worlds are happening without light, hidden to us by darkness. In this darkness, there is also the self-generation of light – how bioluminescence creates its own sparkle, and how our own personal meditations come to us in the dark of reflection then provide us wisdom to light our way forward. Innumerable vibrant ecologies exist, and many are eclipsed – deliberately, passively, or simply through the gift that darkness can offer. We invite pieces that pertain to artists’ interpretation of this line of thinking, feeling, expressing, and being.

We are offering awards of $250 for the winner of each category: poetry, prose, visual arts, and photography. We will have a grand prize award of $500.

Within these art forms, we welcome any type of creativity you as an artist are compelled to submit – sci-fi, creative mapping, etc. This year’s editorial team is particularly intrigued by how nature helps us understand one another, and creates deep meaning to our time on this earth – themes of queer ecology, environmental flourishing amidst resistance, symbolism, and the sheer beauty and deep meaning of nature are very welcome, but are not exclusively sought.

Deadline for submissions is January 5. Email submissions to:

sagemagazine@gmail.com

with the subject line including “2025 Print Edition Submission” & your name & the type of piece you are submitting (prose, poetry, photography, visual art, something else we haven’t thought of, etc.). Word count limits for each piece are a maximum of 3,000 words. We will select one or two longer-form pieces, with hope of receiving shorter prose pieces as well.

See our instagram @magazine.sage to follow along, get more information, and DM us questions.

Call for Submissions: Pleiades

REGULAR SUBMISSIONS

•Pleiades is open for regular submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations during the months of June and December. We are currently closed for book reviews submissions. Please note that submissions sent outside the submission period will not be considered. Unsolicited poetry, fiction, translations (submit under “poetry), and nonfiction should be submitted via our online submissions manager. Unfortunately, we cannot consider paper submissions and emailed submissions, and mailed manuscripts will be recycled. Please do not submit more than once in a given genre during each reading period. Due to staffing changes and an unprecedented volume of submissions, our response time is longer than usual. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

• Please remember to select the appropriate genre of your submission, as submissions sent with no genre marked will not be read. Translations can be submitted under “poetry”.

• Please read the below genre-specific guidelines carefully before submitting.

• Though we attend to submissions as quickly as possible, please allow up to six months before querying.

• We are especially interested in reading submissions from writers from historically marginalized communities as part of our commitment to a broad representation of dynamic work.

• Writers should review past issues of Pleiades to get a sense of our aesthetic and preferences. Order Pleiades here.

GENRE SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

POETRY

Please send a PDF of 3-5 poems. We are particularly interested in work that embraces risk and is lyrically inventive. We value work that gives voice to a range of lived experiences and employs a mastery of expression. Work of any length will be considered, and we look forward to reading your most polished poems. Please do not submit multiple packets during one submissions period. Direct questions regarding poetry to Jenny Molberg and Caitlin Cowan at:

pleiadespoetryeditor@gmail.com 

FICTION

Pleiades is looking for exceptional fiction, with a focus on well-developed characters, memorable language, provocatively-wrought subject matter, and immersive settings. While there are no length requirements, our journal has limited space, and manuscripts over 12,000 words will especially need to impress. Some stories may be considered for our “online exclusives” category. Please direct questions regarding fiction to Jennifer Maritza McCauley at:

pleiadesfictioninquiries@gmail.com

CREATIVE NONFICTION

While we enjoy essays and nonfiction in all forms, here at Pleiades we are particularly interested in creative nonfiction that gazes out at the world rather than into the self. This is to say nothing against memoir, only that our publishing aesthetic leans towards the exterior in order to balance what we often see as a focus on memoir and interiority in many literary journals. Essays that perform a weave of the personal with an outward gaze are very welcome. We do not only consider externally-focused creative nonfiction, but this is our taste preference. Limit creative nonfiction submissions to 6,000 words. Please direct questions regarding nonfiction to:

pleiades@ucmo.edu 

This is a paying market.

Call for Submissions: manywor(l)ds

We welcome submissions by those who identify with and as any of the following descriptors: trans, two-spirit, disabled, neurodivergent, Mad, queer, crip, nonbinary, genderqueer, intersex. This is a space for the words, works, and worlds of and by those whose bodyminds defy social expectations and invite new ways of thinking and knowing.

We do not need to know the specifics of your identity/diagnosis/experience unless you want us to. We invite closeted and questioning people to share their work, as well as those whose experiences fall outside the confines of the language we used above.

We welcome submissions from creators of all ages. We particularly encourage unpublished/emerging/young creators to submit. If you know an incarcerated/institutionalized creator who would like to submit, email us for information as to where to mail the submission, or clearly indicate in your message that you are submitting on their behalf.

We publish on a quarterly schedule, with issues coming out on: 

February 15
May 15
August 15
November 15

We are open for all submissions EXCEPT during publication months. That is to say, we are open for submissions January, March, April, June, July, September, October, and December.

Things to note

This is a leftist magazine. We hate capitalism, “america,” cops, prisons, borders, neoliberalism, and all the rest. We don’t tolerate white supremacy, zionism, cisheterosexism, ableism, transmisogyny, xenophobia, fatphobia, intersexism, and anti-sex worker sentiment here. We reserve the right to reject and/or remove content from creators whose work does not align with our values.

We do not tolerate AI-generated or -assisted submissions. Anyone found to be using AI will have their content immediately rejected/removed and will no longer be eligible to submit to manywor(l)ds.

Simultaneous submissions are expected and encouraged. Please let us know if any part of your submission is accepted elsewhere before we can get to it.

Please submit to us only once per reading period, and hold off on submitting if you were published in the last issue.

We are proud to be a paying market. All contributors of unpublished works will receive $10 USD upon publication. Reprints (including pieces previously shared on public social media profiles) are accepted, provided you have the rights, but will not receive payment.

We prefer Paypal for payment; however, Venmo, Interac e-transfer, and Wise are also possible. If we can’t settle on a suitable fee-free alternative (excepting currency conversion fees), the money will be donated to a mutual aid fund or similar cause.

More information and submission link here.

Call for Submissions: The/temz/Review

 

AI Policy
There are legitimate artistic reasons to use AI. If you submit work to us that uses AI, be sure to clearly state in your cover message/letter the following:

a) The extent of AI use
b) The reason(s) for AI use

Submitting work containing AI-generated material without accurately disclosing the nature and extent of this content will result in a permanent ban on submitting to us.

Chapbooks
We publish chapbooks on an ongoing basis through 845 Press. We are looking for innovative prose and poetry, and work that is both, or maybe neither. That thing you have tucked away in a drawer because you aren't sure what it is or where to send it: try us!

We publish authors from around the world, but our primary focus will be on Canadian writers.

We publish chapbooks with page ranges of approximately 10 to 45 pages.

Please submit only once for this year.

We are currently open for chapbook submissions.

Prose (for the journal)
We publish prose (fiction and creative non-fiction) up to 10,000 words long. We will consider pieces longer than 10,000 words, but they need to earn their length.

We pay $20 per piece.

If your piece is longer than 1000 words, please submit only one piece. If your pieces are fewer than 1000 words each, feel free to submit several pieces at once.

We are looking for innovative short fiction from diverse voices. Our preference is for the strange, the experimental and the boundary-pushing, but we are open to a wide range of styles and voices.

Poetry (for the journal)

We accept submissions of 1-8 poems, depending on the length of the poems.

We prefer poetry submissions to be 10 pages or fewer. You can certainly send us longer submissions, particularly if you are submitting a long poem, but longer submissions need to earn their length.

We pay $20 per batch of poems we publish.

Our preference is for innovative verse that pushes the boundaries of poetry, but we are open to a wide range of styles and voices.

Please submit only once per reading period.

Reviews and Interviews (for the journal)
We do not accept reviews or interviews submitted through Moksha. If you are interested in writing a review for us or placing an interview with us, please query us first at:

 

thetemzreview[at]gmail[dot]com (Change [at] to @ and [dot] to . )

 

We are particularly interested in reviews of Canadian small press titles and of works in translation, and in interviews with the authors of this kind of work.

Simultaneous Submissions Welcome!
We welcome simultaneous submissions, provided you notify us and/or withdraw a piece that is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Submissions Manager: Moksha
Unlike with Submittable, you do not need to create an account in order to submit through Moksha. The submissions process is very easy: simply click on the link below and follow the instructions.

Submit through Moksha

Writing Competition: The Gina Berriault Award for a Work-In-Progress

The Gina Berriault Award (GBA) is a national award given to an emerging prose writer for an exemplary work-in-progress. The winner will have an excerpt of their winning submission published in the Fourteen Hills journal.

The Gina Berriault Award was inaugurated by Peter Orner in conjunction with Fourteen Hills Press to pay homage to the eponymous writer, a former SFSU professor who with every story embodied a certain selflessness and unflinching compassion. The award is given annually to a writer with a similar spirit who has shown a love for storytelling and a commitment to helping young writers.

• Submission deadline: January 15th, 2025

• Submission fee: $10.00

• Submissions only accepted via Submittable

• Students currently enrolled at San Francisco State University are ineligible

• Work must be previously unpublished

• The submission file must be in .doc or .docx format (Microsoft Word or Open Office)

• Monetary award of $1,000.00 for the selected work

If your work-in-progress is accepted for the Gina Berriault Award, you will receive two free copies of Fourteen Hills #31.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION:

• The cover letter field must include your name, the title of your Work In Progress, your phone number, mailing address, and email.

• Your submission must be at least 50 pages in length, and no more than 150 pages in length.

• Your submission document must include a table of contents if there are multiple works within your Work In Progress.

• No revisions to the Works In Progress will be accepted after submission.

• The Work In Progress must be unpublished. Works In Progress that have been previously self-published are ineligible.

• Works In Progress will be judged anonymously. Therefore, the author's name, other identifying information, and publication information must not appear within the Work In Progress. Only your uploaded work is visible to the judge.

Writing Competition: The Hazel Rowley Prize for a First-Time Biographer

$5,000 Prize for Best Proposal from a First-time Biographer

The Hazel Rowley Prize rewards a first-time biographer with: funding (the $5,000 award); a careful reading from an established agent; a year’s membership in BIO (along with registration to the annual Biographers International [BIO] conference); and publicity for the author and project through the BIO website, The Biographer’s Craft newsletter, etc. The prize is a way for BIO—an organization of biographers, agents, editors, and biography devotees—to advance its mission and extend its reach to talented new practitioners.

Eligibility

The prize is open to all first-time biographers anywhere in the world who are writing in English, who are working on a biography that has not been commissioned, contracted, or self-published, and who have never published a book-length biography, autobiography, history, or work of narrative nonfiction. Biography as defined for this prize is a narrative of an individual’s life or the story of a group of lives. Innovative ways of treating a life (or lives) will be considered at the committee’s discretion. Memoirs, however, are not eligible.

Applicants should:

Complete the on-line entry form. (Please note that the form can be tricky. When filling out one’s address, for example, “city” and “state” go in the boxes above the words, not below.)

Upload a proposal, writing sample, and resume in one document totaling no more than 20 pages. The proposal and writing sample should be double-spaced, with 12-point type and standard margins. The proposal should include a synopsis, a proposed table of contents, and notes on the market and competing literature. The document must be a PDF. Please include your name as part of the file name of the PDF that you submit.

Sign the online entry form by checking the box affirming your understanding of the rules and procedures.

Submit $25 for the application fee using a major credit card or by check. Payment instructions are on the entry form.

You will receive an acknowledgment of your entry within several days. If you do not, please contact Michael Gately.
Terms and Conditions

The deadline for entries is March 1. Application forms will be available after September 1. Receipt of all applications will be acknowledged by email. Thereafter, only applicants on the final shortlist for the prize will be contacted. Formal announcement of the winner will be made at the annual conference.

In submitting this prize entry form, you agree to all the terms and conditions of the BIO Hazel Rowley Prize. You affirm that the proposal you are submitting is not (and will not be) under consideration by any publisher until after the winner has been announced in May 2024. Only one entry per applicant. In submitting this entry form, you affirm that you are the sole author (or, if co-authored, authors) of the proposal. You also affirm that in the event of winning the prize, you will make your best effort to market your proposal for publication as a book and that you will acknowledge BIO’s support in any publications that result from the Rowley Prize. BIO also requires that you submit a brief paragraph reporting on your progress within a year after receiving the Prize. All decisions by the judges are final.

More information here.

Call for Submissions: Reverie Magazine

General Guidelines 

Deadline: Jan. 1, 2025

All are welcome to submit.

We accept writing/artwork that has been previously published, but ask that you state the previous place of publication.

​Simultaneous submissions are encouraged but please let us know if your piece has found a home elsewhere.

​If your work is accepted, we ask for first publishing rights and archival rights. Upon publication, all rights revert back to the author. We would be grateful if you could credit Reverie as the place where your work first appeared, should the piece be reprinted in the future​.

Reverie does not publish any work that is offensive in nature. We do not endorse any form of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other narratives that may be harmful and derogatory.

All submissions should be sent by email to:

reverie.litjournal@gmail.com 

and should be attached as a pdf, Word document, or Google Docs file. If submitting multiple works, please send them in separate files.

Please title the subject line with your name and the submission type(s). For example, "Emily Dickinson, Poetry + Fiction Submission".

In the body of your email, please provide the following information:

Name(s) of submission(s)

A brief 50-word bio of yourself​

More information here.

Writing Competitions: The Rumpus Prize for Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction

Announcing the inaugural Rumpus Prize for Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction! Submissions are open December 5, 2024, to March 2, 2025. The Rumpus has a long history of championing emerging and established poets, fiction writers, and essayists, and we’re pleased to announce a new way the magazine will bring attention to great writing.

All submissions will be read by The Rumpus's editorial team, and our final judges will be Kaveh Akbar (Poetry), Rachel Khong (Fiction), and Megan Stielstra (Creative Nonfiction).

$3,600 in prizes $1,000 first-place prize and publication in three genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction

Honorable mentions receive $200 and publication in each of the three genres

All submitters can opt in if they’d like to be considered for publication by The Rumpus, regardless of whether they’re named a winner or finalist. The submission fee is $20 per entry.

Finalists will be contacted in May 2025. Winners will be announced publicly and published by June 2025.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Roots": ROPES

 

How do I submit my work to ROPES?For writing, you may submit your material using the written submission Google Form.

For visual art, you may submit your material using the visual submission Google Form.

Before submitting, please read the below submissions guidelines carefully.

What is the submission deadline?

The deadline for written submissions is Wednesday 1 January, 2025. 

For visual submissions, the deadline is Friday 21 February, 2025. 

What is the topic or theme for this year's submissions?

The theme for ROPES issue 33 is roots. We encourage writers and artists to explore and develop their own unique interpretations of this theme. For our team, it has connotations of place, origins, family, nature, classical myths and tales, and core values and meanings.

You may choose to interpret this theme in an entirely different way, so long as it is somehow connected to the idea of roots. We can't wait to read your work!

What kind of material can I submit?

ROPES welcomes both written and visual submissions from Irish and international writers of all origins and backgrounds. We encourage work from first-time writers, members of minority groups or underrepresented communities, as well as writing as Gaeilge. We accept a variety of written and visual work, including, but not limited to, fiction, flash fiction, poetry, memoirs, essays, art, and photography. All submissions should be original, previously unpublished work.

If you are eager to share a piece of work (within the designated word count: see below) but are unsure about its category or content, feel free to send a query to:

ropeslitmag.submissions@gmail.com

What is the word count?

Our general guideline word count is as follows:

Fiction: Max 3,000 words (ONE piece per submission)
Non-fiction (memoirs, essays, other): Max 3000 words (ONE piece per submission)
Flash fiction: Max 500 words (up to THREE pieces per submission)
Poetry: Max 40 lines per poem (up to FOUR poems per submission)

If you are submitting prose or any type of long-form content, please note the word count of the piece in the document. Please ensure that multiple pieces (poetry, flashes, etc) are compiled within a single document.

Can I submit more than once?

We allow one submission per category (this may comprise a singular piece or multiple, depending on the categories listed above).

Should you choose to submit in multiple categories, we ask that you treat these as separate submissions and complete a new Google Form each time. Please note that your submission will not be considered unless submitted through our Google Form.

What about visual submissions?

For visual submissions, we require +300 PPI.

What about the formatting?

All writing should be formatted in a clear font with easy-to-read spacing. All submissions should be in PDF, .doc or .docx format.

Should I include my name?

Our selection and editing process is entirely anonymous, so please do not include your name anywhere on your submitted files.

Can I submit to ROPES if I’ve already submitted somewhere else?

We are happy to take simultaneous submissions (provided the work is original), but we ask that you notify us should your work be accepted elsewhere.

Will I receive feedback on my work?

Please note that we will be unable to offer feedback on unsuccessful applications due to a high volume of submissions.

Writing Competition: Slippery Elm Prize

Slippery Elm Prize Guidelines

$1000 prizes in Poetry & Prose

2025 Judges: Timothy Geiger in Poetry; TBA in Prose

Submissions open annually in the fall, and close at midnight EST on Feb. 1st.

All contest entrants will receive a copy of the winning issue and be considered for publication.

All entries should be original and previously unpublished; all rights to the submitted works must belong to the submitter.

Simultaneous submissions are fine.

$15 entry fee for up to 3 poems (no line/length limit) or one essay or story (5000 words maximum). Multiple entries are fine.

All entries must be sent through our Submittable interface.

All contest entries will be considered for publication in Slippery Elm’s print issue.

We welcome General Submissions from all, but those currently or recently affiliated with the University of Findlay or Slippery Elm should refrain from entering the Contests. Although judging will be blind, we wish to avoid any potential appearance of conflict of interest.

Submit your entry here.

Call for Submissions: Variant Literature

Submit November 24 through December 31 for consideration for March 2025 issue.

General 

• Please submit only once per submission period unless otherwise invited.

• We do not accept e-mail submissions; all work must be submitted through Submittable.

• Please send all work in one file.

• We aim to respond to your work within two months; our average response time is closer to one month.

• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

• We do not accept previously published works.

Poetry

There are no format restrictions. Limit your submission to 5 poems totaling no more than 10 pages.

Fiction

Authors should limit submissions to no more than 20 pages (5500 words).

Flash and Micro Series

Please send ONE piece of flash fiction or flash nonfiction (1200 words or less) or a connected series of THREE micros (250 to 400 words each).

What happened to the nonfiction genre?

If your nonfiction is less than 1200 words, submit to the flash genre. We are not looking for longer nonfiction.

Payment We pay $10 per accepted story, poem, or micro series. 

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: The Evergreen Review

 

Since its inception in 1957, The Evergreen Review has sought out writers and artists who embrace experimentation and tell stories that aren’t often heard in mainstream spaces. Evergreen now welcomes general submissions of original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and video art—and we’re especially excited by works which blur the lines between multiple genres and forms. 

 

We pay essayists, short story writers, poets, and videographers a minimum of $250. We will also consider excerpts from forthcoming books, as long as they haven't been published elsewhere. Read our current issue to get a sense of what we like.

Because we are a volunteer editorial staff, it may take us several months to get back to you.

*****We ask that you please do NOT submit additional work if you're still awaiting our decision on a submission currently in the queue.*****

For poetry: send 5–10 of your best unpublished poems directly to Jee Leong Koh at:

 

 jeeleong@evergreenreview.com

 

 —no fee is required for poetry submissions.

Our $5.00 submission fee helps cover contributor payments and general operating expenses. If you are unable to afford it, you may choose not to pay the fee upon submission. This option is meant to support writers facing severe financial hardship, so please only opt to waive the fee if it is absolutely necessary.

For questions about our submission process, contact:

 

info@evergreenreview.com

 

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "We Love All Voices": Conjunctions

We will accept submissions for our spring 2025 print issue, Conjunctions: 84, We Love All We Voices, via Submittable from November 27 – December 15, 2024. All submissions will also be considered for our weekly online magazine.

Note: If you miss the Submittable window, we are also open for submissions by postal mail year-round. Please see below for instructions.

ONLINE MAGAZINE

Submissions are open year-round by postal mail for our biannual print issues and weekly online magazine, which is not subject to thematic restrictions. Please see below for instructions.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Submissions are open year-round by postal mail. To submit via mail, please send your manuscript to our editorial office (address below) with a brief cover letter including your name, address, and email. In order to receive a response, you must include a self-addressed envelope stamped with sufficient postage for our reply and for return of your manuscript (if requested). Do not send submissions by any delivery method that requires a signature.

Address mail submissions to: 

Bradford Morrow, Editor

Conjunctions

21 E 10th Street, #3E

New York, NY 10003

While we can’t predict exactly when an issue will close to new work, we typically read into August for our fall issues and into February for our spring issues.

Submissions will also be accepted electronically via Submittable twice a year, during our fall and winter reading periods. Please check back here or follow us on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter for the earliest information about our reading periods for each issue.

If you'd like to submit to Conjunctions outside of our fall and spring Submittable periods, please submit via postal mail.

WHAT TO SUBMIT

Conjunctions publishes short- and long-form fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid texts. We do not publish academic essays or book reviews.

All submissions must be in English and previously unpublished. We will consider works in translation for which the translator has secured the rights.

Although we have no official restrictions regarding word count, most of the manuscripts we select for publication are under eight thousand words long. For poetry submissions, we suggest sending half a dozen poems, depending on length.

We strongly suggest that writers new to Conjunctions read our recent issues to acquaint themselves with our publications. Subscriptions are available here.

Writers published in print issues of Conjunctions receive a small honorarium from our publisher, Bard College.

Call for Submissions: The Arkansas International

We welcome previously unpublished general submissions of fiction, poetry, essays, comics, and works in translation (through Submittable only) between November 15 and January 31. In the summer, we accept submissions for our themed issue between May 15 and August 15. While we are no longer open to free submissions, we are happy to offer waivers to those identifying as BIPOC or in need of financial assistance. For more information on how to apply, please email:

editor@arkint.org

To get a sense of what we publish, read previous issues on our website.

General Guidelines

• Prose submissions should be no more than 8,000 words, poem packets no more than five poems, and we ask that excerpts from longer works be self-contained. Please submit all work in one document.

• Simultaneous submissions are welcome, provided we are notified in the event that a piece is accepted elsewhere. Please do not submit more than a single story, essay, or poem packet until you have heard back from us about your previous submission.

• Submissions of translated works must include a copy of the original text. If there are extenuating circumstances that prevent you from including a copy of the original text at the time of your submission, please note that in the cover letter. Before submitting translations of works that are not in the public domain, translators should identify the rights holder and obtain a statement that the rights to publish an English translation are available.

• For all submissions, include a brief cover letter and bio.

• The Arkansas International cannot consider creative work from anyone currently or recently affiliated with the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, which includes those who have studied or worked there within the past four years.

• In the event that you need to withdraw any or all parts of your submission, withdraw via Submittable, or for partial withdrawals of poetry submissions, add a message to your submission.

Response time: On average, we respond within three to six to months, although sometimes longer due to the volume of submissions received. We continue to review submissions and will be in touch as soon as we can. We are unable to respond to general status queries. Should you need to be in touch with the editorial team, Submittable message is the best way to do so.

Contributors will be paid $25 a printed page (capped at $250) and receive two complementary copies of the journal.

Thank you for trusting us with your work. We look forward to reading it!

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: Motherwell

Motherwell is a Webby Award-winning online publication that tells all sides of the parenting story, with original content on family life, culture, obstacles and the process of overcoming them. Additionally, every day we curate the best, most interesting, and most thought-provoking parenting-related content across our social media platforms. We also offer editorial services and a curated platform, Motherwell Books, entirely devoted to showcasing the best parenting reads.

At Motherwell, we believe that modern parenting is a complicated entity and, as such, every single mom and dad out there has a unique voice that can contribute to our understanding of it. This means we feel strongly about showcasing a full spectrum of parenting experiences, but also that we do not shy away from conflicting perspectives.

The idea of a well conjures up images of community, of depth, of the essential nature of water. Motherwell is exactly this: a place for parents to gather, to think deeply and, hopefully, it is a community that you will keep coming back to, over and over again, for sustenance.

Current calls for submissions:

Parenting and Food. Our ongoing column, we are looking for stories that delve into all the ways in which these two areas of life can intersect. Interpretations might include: cultivating cooking skills with your kids; body image around pregnancy; raising picky or limited eaters; managing food allergies; coping with weight concerns, at either end of the spectrum. Completed essays only and please include word count (we tend to cap at 1,200).

Motherwell Books. We’re currently looking for posts related to reading and writing, themed book lists (e.g. for new moms, parenting teens, empowering girls), and articles and essays that are centered around a parenting book (or books) that aren’t your own. Please familiarize yourself with our site and the vertical before submitting and include word count (we tend to cap at 1,200).

Holidays as a Parent. We’d love to invite submissions about what the holidays (e.g. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving) mean to you and your family. Or anything regarding how they make you feel about being a parent. We are open to a range of formats and lengths: personal essays, humor pieces, listicles, anecdotes, etc. All formats welcome and please include a word count (we tend to cap at 1,200).

For all other submissions:

Motherwell is a publication that tells all sides of the parenting story. We accept work on a variety of parenting-related themes—culture, family life, obstacles and the process of overcoming them. We have two streams of writing on the site:

Paid opportunities for selected, original articles—either personal essays or perspective pieces.

An additional platform where we collect other pieces: syndicated and sponsored posts, shorter essays and alternative formats, including videos, graphic memoirs, lists, poetry, etc. These are unpaid.

We are unfortunately unable to give individual feedback on submissions, but we do offer personally tailored editorial services.

For time-sensitive articles, please continue to use Submittable but indicate ‘timely’ in the subject line. 

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: Redivider

Please submit your work through the Submittable page only. Redivider will not accept work through email or USPS. We welcome simultaneous submissions.

We are looking for new and under-published voices. Submit what you’re worried to send elsewhere. We want pieces that are nonobvious and circumvent the familiar, that breakthrough abstraction to examine a moment or concept from the side, rather than straight on. All submissions must be standalone pieces (no excerpts), although we accept single poems from a larger series of works.

Things we wish we saw more:

• Endings that stick with the reader

• Characters with complex motives

• Narratives with high stakes

• Consistent voice throughout the piece

• Pieces that reflect wider views and deal with current cultural and political discourses

• Revealing core truths in an unexpected way

• Making the familiar unfamiliar

Things we already see a lot of:
• Stories about illness
• Privileged family fiction
• Descriptions of the sun and its rays and the color of the sky on the opening page
• Poems about birds

Redivider will not consider submissions that endorse prejudice, racism, xenophobia, classism, sexism, ableism, fat-shaming, homophobia, or gratuitous violence. We reserve the right to reject such submissions outright and reject further submissions from the author. We also reserve the right to remove content from our journal if an author is known to be harassing or abusive. We do not accept plagiarized content in any form for publication in our journal. Any submitters known to submit plagiarized work will be blacklisted from all current and future publications at Redivider. Redivider does not accept work that has been even partially created with the use of AI.

Authors will receive a contract upon acceptance. Redivider requests first serial rights, and all rights revert back to the author upon publication. Authors retain copyright to their work published in Redivider. If the work is later republished, we request that you note its initial publication in Redivider. We also request the right, with author permission, to use your work for promotional purposes. We ask that authors who are accepted with us wait 2 years before submitting work again.

Poetry (10-12 per issue)

Length guidelines: 5 poems, 10 pages max
Please submit no more than five poems per submission, up to ten pages, as a single document. We can publish poetry featuring complex enjambment and indentation, but please be reasonable with longer poems, as each work must be carefully typeset, line-by-line, to show up as the artist intended on a web page.

Fiction (4 per issue)

Word count: 1,200–6,000 words
Please submit one short fiction piece at a time. Stories shorter than 1,200 words should be submitted under Flash Fiction. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface. Redivider will happily consider genre writing with strong enough prose, though hard science fiction, high fantasy, and tawdry romance will probably fit better at another journal.

Flash Fiction (2 per issue)

Word count: 1,200 words or less
Please submit no more than three flash fiction pieces per submission. These pieces will be evaluated by the Redivider Fiction Team and published in a dedicated section apart from other full-length short fiction. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface.

Memoir & Personal Essay (3 per issue)

Word count: 6,000 words or less
Please submit a single piece of nonfiction personal essay or memoir to this category. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface. Journalistic works, criticism and commentary, and texts containing substantial background research should be submitted under Cultural Critique.

Cultural Critique (2 per issue)

Word count: 8,000 words or less
Please submit a single piece of cultural commentary or critique. We accept both casual and academic-style manuscripts for this genre. These may be essays regarding US or non-US culture. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface.

Memoirs and personal essays should be submitted under that category.

Cover Art Image count: 6 images or less
The cover art will be used in both the online and print editions of the issue. Art submissions can be uploaded as six separate attachments in one submission or, preferably, in a single .ZIP file—please do not send multiple submissions. Please save original images for each piece as a separate .TIF file no larger than 6 x 9 inches and at a resolution of 600dpi for line art and 300 dpi for all others. If your piece is chosen for the cover, you may be contacted for a larger file. Digital submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be considered. Please email us with questions or for alternate submission methods.

Call for Submissions from Active Duty Military, Veterans, or Family Members: Issued: Stories of Service

Launched in May 2023 with sponsorship from the Office for Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at Arizona State University, ISSUED is a journal for veterans voices that upholds standards of craft, an intersection that readers have cherished for centuries. Military-inspired literature is American literature. It’s a space of reclamation and preservation, of both History as well as personal and familial history, and the poetry and prose in ISSUED is carrying on that tradition.

Because we pride ourselves on both our national readership and community ethos, ISSUED also features profiles of veterans who are doing extraordinary work in their communities, whether it be through the arts, education, mental health, or advocacy. In other words, we’re a journal with a broad military-affiliated audience, not just a strictly literary one.

Finally, at ISSUED, we believe in the healing power of narrative medicine, and according to studies, when veterans read or write about service, they have better health outcomes. Thus, we hope that ISSUED will serve as a resource for veterans’ writing circles, discussion groups, treks, etc., i.e. be used to facilitate a heathier veteran community.

SUBMISSIONS

ISSUED is looking for work by active-duty, veterans, and family members—specifically, poetry and flash prose that expresses the spectrum of experiences within military life, including gender and sexuality, BIPOC voices, physical and mental health, combat, enlisting and separating, family and relationships, and reintegration into society. We also accept visual art in any genre.

Submit up to 3 poems or 1 piece of flash prose (1500 words or fewer). Send your submission in a single word doc to:

issuedjournal@gmail.com 

The submission deadline for the 2025 issue is December 31, 2024.

Please include a bio (100 words or less) that includes your military affiliation.

FAQs

All rights revert back to the author upon publication.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please let us know if your work has been accepted elsewhere.

Feel free to send up to 5 pieces of visual art, but please do not send more than 3 poems or 1 piece of flash-length prose (fiction or nonfiction, 1500 words or fewer).

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Metamodernism": Jokes Review

Submissions are OPEN!

THEME: Metamodernism. Send us stories and poems that oscillate between postmodern irony and modern sincerity. To learn more about what we’re after, read Eleven Metamodern Methods in the Arts by Greg Dember. If you’re not sure if your piece is metamodern, go ahead and submit and let us decide!

DEADLINE: February 1, 2025

Submit to:

jokesliterary@gmail.com (more details below)

We also always accept nonfiction submissions for Jokes Journal (our Substack newsletter) as well as to our book series. See below for details.

General Submission Info

To get a better idea of what we're looking for, check out our ABOUT page. All submissions to Jokes Review must be original and previously unpublished.

SUBMIT to jokes review

Send submissions to:

 

jokesliterary@gmail.com (in the body of an email or as an attachment).

 

Your submission should include contact info and a short third-person bio.

 

Simultaneous submission are welcome, but let us know if the work is picked up elsewhere.
submit to our blog, jokes journal

Follow the instructions above for submitting to Jokes Review.

 

We’d love to see submissions of art collections, book reviews, or any sort of literary curiosity. Basically, send us anything, really. We’ll check it out.

 

submit to our book series

Follow the instructions above for submitting to Jokes Review, and then refer to the specifications below for our two series:

Fair-Minded Fraud and Forgery: The work should be at least 12,000 words. The content should explore a specific theme in art, literature, or philosophy that you are personally connected to or unusually inspired by. The work should be a mixture of fact, fiction, and autobiography. 

 

Egregious Pulp: The work should be at least 12,000 words. We’re looking for pulpy genre fiction that’s fun, edgy, and genre-bending. But still literary and intelligent.
 

RIGHTS

By submitting your work to Jokes Review, you indicate your consent for us to publish your work in our journal. Jokes Review acquires first North American serial rights. After publication, all rights revert to the author.

 

SUPPORT

Submitting to Jokes Review is always free, as we believe it should be. But if you'd like to show your support for our journal, consider purchasing a copy of one of our issues (they look great in print!). Also, tell your friends about Jokes Review, share our stories, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Love and the Holidays": Discretionary Love

Are you considering sending us your love piece? Here’s what you need to know.

All pieces must be connected to love. We are currently accepting: poetry, short stories, creative nonfiction, essays and articles. Send us the beauty and the chaos.

SPECIAL HOLIDAY EDITION FOR NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER SUBMISSIONS!!

We want to hear about your thanksgiving meltdowns, home for the holidays tear jerkers & new year break ups.

**Regular sub rules still apply, but your love story must incorporate the holiday season.**

Submissions are OPEN. We aim to publish new love stories monthly. Our next story release will be on December 22, 2024.

Submissions Open: November 1, 2024 – December 15, 2024.

• We prefer new times roman, double spacing and 12 pt font. 
• Poetry: 1-5 poems, no more than 100 lines per poem.
• Short Stories/Creative Nonfiction: 1 piece up to 3000 words.
• Articles/Essays: up to 3000 words. 1 article or essay. Please include a brief synopsis of what the piece is about in your email.

Note: All accepted submissions will be promoted on Discretionary Love’s social media platforms.
Sound good? Alright, you’re almost ready to send!

Send submissions with a third-person bio to:

submissions@discretionarylove.com 

We accept .pdf and .doc(x). Social media handles are encouraged.

PLEASE NOTE:

*Any submissions received outside of the submission period, will not be considered.

*We do allow simultaneous submissions.

*Original work only. 

Discretionary Love reserves all rights to the author. Please credit us if work is republished after appearing here at Discretionary Love.

Call for Submissions: Menagerie

 

Menagerie publishes fictions, essays, and poems. We believe in sentences so sharp they draw blood, the strange and inexplicable, the wild and weird and uncanny, words in thickets, clusters, and flocks, pieces that move us beyond caring what others think about said pieces.

Things we like: fictions ala Borges, Link, Calvino, & Sparks; weird lyric essay; engagements with the environment and natural world; poems that explode form; bricolage, masala, & sagul sagul; forays into the omnipresent information-saturated online architecture we live in.

Things we don’t: lukewarm prose, sentences bereft of emotion, formulaic attempts at being on trend, conformity, pat endings, sentiment-drenched rhyming poems, neat and orderly stories.

We care about writers and artists. That means if you’ve entrusted your work to us, you’ll get a response. And we pay for the work we publish. Because it’s important that we value what you’ve made.

Menagerie is open for two reading periods a year: Feb-May and Aug-Nov. Subs are free till we hit our monthly cap, so get in early. (Note: Submittable now shows a deadline of Dec. 31, 2024 with $3.00 submission fee.) Tip Jar subs are also available during reading periods. (If only tip jar subs are available on the submittable page, that means we’ve hit our monthly free cap. If you want to submit for free, just wait till the start of the next month.)

We’ll do our level best to promote your work, pairing each piece with original artwork, and providing social posts you can use on your own channels. It’s our hope that Menagerie will serve as an accelerator for bringing your work into the world and getting it noticed.

We observe the following guidelines:

• Simultaneous submissions are allowed. If your work is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw it.

• Please submit to only one category at a time. A focused submission is better than hitting all categories at once.

• Poetry submissions may include 3-5 poems at once. If one of the poems is accepted elsewhere, notify us, and we’ll continue considering the other poems in your submission.

• Stories and essays should be no more than 5K. We tend to publish in the 1-3K category more frequently, through, given the short attention span we all have on the web.

• We pay $50 per acceptance (e.g. one piece of prose or one to three poems) and acquire first serial rights. We do not republish work that has already appeared elsewhere.

• Please expect a response time of 30-60 days.

In short: if you’ve written something and don’t know what to call it, we want to see it. Our menagerie is vast and unending, and contains all size and shape of curios.

Perhaps yours will soon be one of them.

Submit your work here.