Call for Submissions: Apple Valley Review

The Apple Valley Review is an international online literary journal. It is published semiannually, in the spring and fall of the year. Each issue features a collection of beautifully crafted poetry and prose.

We consider short stories, flash fiction, personal essays/creative nonfiction, poetry, and prose poetry. Please submit work that is original, previously unpublished, and in English. Translations are welcome if permission has been granted.

Manuscripts are read year-round, and there are no fees for submissions. Please send your submission via e-mail. Include your cover letter, a short bio, and the text of your writing in the body of a single e-mail message. We do not open unsolicited attachments. 

Submissions are read year-round. The deadline for any individual issue will be listed on our official Facebook and Twitter pages. Generally, the deadline for the spring issue is March 15, and the deadline for the fall issue is September 15.

Any piece of writing that is sent after the deadline for a particular issue will be considered for the next one. We do not keep a backlog. 

Please expect to wait up to two months for a reply. Whenever possible, though, submissions will receive a reply within two to three weeks. (Response times may be longer during holidays or when the volume of submissions is especially high.)

It is rare, but the responses are sometimes caught by spam or bulk mail filters. To make sure you that you receive our response, adding the e-mail address for submissions to your list of approved senders can be helpful. 

We prefer work that has both mainstream and literary appeal. In other words, please send us work that is both accessible and finely written.

Prose submissions may range from approximately 100 to 4,000 words. Shorter pieces stand a better chance of being published, but we are not strict about word counts and will read and consider slightly longer (or shorter) work.   

Please send only one submission at a time. Follow the guidelines for your particular genre, and unless you are sending hybrid work of some kind, please do not mix genres in the same submission.

This is not currently a paying market. However, all work published in the Apple Valley Review during a given calendar year will be considered for the annual Apple Valley Review Editor’s Prize. There is no separate application process for the prize. From 2006 to the 2022, the prize was $100 and a gift of a book of poetry, fiction, or essays.

Please note that we do not publish scripts, book reviews, author interviews, nonfiction articles, or research papers; true genre fiction (though literary pieces with genre elements are welcome); work that is scholarly or critical, inspirational, or intended for children; erotica or work containing explicit language; or anything that is particularly violent or disturbing.

These are purely editorial preferences. Work that is not a fit here may be perfect for another market.      

If your work is accepted for publication, especially if there are any questions about the formatting of your work, we may ask you to send it to us in a Word attachment (.doc or .docx). In the meantime, please do not send any unsolicited attachments.  

Please send your work via email to: 

Leah Browning, Editor, at editor[at]leahbrowning[dot]net (Change [at] to @ and [dot] to. )