Sunday, February 27, 2022

Call for Submissions: True Story

Deadline: April 30, 2022 

Each issue of True Story features one exceptional work of creative nonfiction, distributed in print and digitally (and available online to subscribers and behind a limited paywall).

  • Guidelines: Essays must be previously unpublished. Multiple submissions are welcome, as are entries from outside the United States. You may submit essays online only, via Submittable. Submissions should be between 5,000 and 10,000 words long, on any subject, in any style. Surprise us! The only hard and fast rules are that all work submitted must be nonfiction and original to the author, and we will not consider previously published work. That said, many of the stories we’ve featured in True Story share some common elements:

A strong narrative component or source of tension that keeps readers in suspense;
A significant informational component;
A personal (or at least writerly) connection or window into the information element;
Significant movement across distance or time or both;
And some sort of bigger question.

We’ll pay $750 on publication and give you 10 free copies of “your” issue. We’ll do our best to respond to submissions within four months. We can’t promise to consider work submitted for True Story for any of CNF’s other projects or publications—but we reserve the right to do so.

There is a $3 reading fee, waived for current True Story and/or Creative Nonfiction subscribers. 

Tips From the Editor

Please do send work that blends style with substance, and reaches beyond the personal to tell us something new about the world. We're drawn to stories that balance a strong narrative (i.e. something happens) with a teaching or reflective element (i.e. the something that happens matters for some reason). Please do include your complete contact information and keep us informed of the status of simultaneous submissions. Please don't send poetry.

Submission link.

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