Call for Submissions: Smokelong Quarterly

SmokeLong publishes flash narratives up to 1000 words. We consider reviews of flash collections, essays on craft, and articles on teaching flash for the blog. Include a print-ready, third-person bio with your cover letter. Please include no identifying information on your document, the filename, or the title on Submittable. Our editors read submissions anonymously and have no access to the cover letter or the messaging feature on Submittable.

You can send one previously unpublished piece at a time and wait until you hear our decision before sending another, or you can send up to three submissions in the same document for a small fee. The multiple-submission option includes a discount code to be used in the SmokeLong Shop and a promise to respond within 3 days. If your submission is being considered for publication, we’ll let you know that we’ll need a few more days to discuss your work.

During unpaid submissions windows, please allow us up to four weeks to inform you if we have accepted your work for publication. You will usually hear from us sooner. During paid submissions windows, we try to respond within one week. For submissions accompanied by a tip jar donation, we try to respond within three days regardless of when the piece is submitted.

We consider simultaneous submissions, but please take into consideration response times when submitting to multiple journals. Please inform us immediately if your work has been accepted somewhere else for publication.

We pay $100/$150 with audio, upon publication in the quarterly issue. Payment will be issued via PayPal or Zelle, and the writer may be responsible for any associated fees if applicable.

Our Reading Schedule: 

• March Issue: November 16-February 15

• June Issue (The SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction): February 1-May 10. General submissions are closed from February 16 to May 14 while we read entries in The SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction competition.

• September Issue: May 15-August 15

• December Issue (including The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest): August 16-November 15. The reading period for The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest begins August 1. General submissions are open!

Please note that starting May 16 2025, we will have free-submission windows for each of the general-submissions reading periods above. After these windows close, there will be a small charge for submissions. We will announce these deadlines on social media; please follow us on Bluesky and The Train Wreck Formerly Known as Twitter to stay up to date. If you cannot afford to pay a small submission fee, no worries. We will always have a free-submission period.

Info to Help Increase Your Chances of Publication

The best way to learn what a journal publishes is to read the journal. Our archives—23 years of flash!—are free to read. If you are unfamiliar with the flash narrative, please take a few hours and browse our archives.

We are not interested in works previously published—with the exception of the now annual Grand Micro Contest, which is open to previously published work. Pieces published only on your personal web site or blog will be considered as long as they are removed before publication in SmokeLong; please inform us of this in your cover letter. Translated work must also be previously unpublished in the original language.

We are all writers at SmokeLong and sensitive to the nature of submitting work—which we realize is often your very private and important selves—to strangers. We will treat your story with respect. We want what all readers want from you: something sincerely and uniquely yours, something that stands up to rereading and lingers in our consciousness. We want to be surprised and thrilled.

Our intent is to respond as quickly as possible, which means you might receive a rejection one or two days after submitting. Please know that at least two editors gave your submission careful consideration. If we are considering your work longer than three weeks during unpaid submissions periods or one week during paid submissions periods, this is a great sign.

Online Rights: If we publish your work, we require exclusive electronic rights to it for 6 months and non-exclusive rights indefinitely so we can include it in our online archives.

Print Rights: We require non-exclusive print rights, for potential annual anthologies and promotional materials. All other rights remain yours.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Playground Boyfriend": Black Warrior Review's Boyfriend Village

 

Boyfriend Village is Black Warrior Review’s online edition, released once and sometimes twice a year.

In March 2018, BWR chose to rename and reconfigure its online issue in honor of Zach Doss, who had passed away unexpectedly. Zach was a dedicated BWR Editor and a brilliant writer of queer, fabulist, surprising works; Boyfriend Village has become a special haven for such writing and much, much more.

In honor of Zach’s bold vision and legacy, Boyfriend Village seeks to be a fully accessible space for unusual, boundary-pushing literary content, especially work from the margins, work that makes exciting use of digital platforms, and work that other well-established journals might overlook. We hope that with the increased online presence Boyfriend Village allows, we might provide a larger platform for underrepresented aesthetics and writing communities. Work found in Boyfriend Village resists and challenges notions of “the page” alongside other extraordinary pieces you might expect to find in the print issues of BWR.

Every issue of Boyfriend Village has a new Online Editor, who selects a new theme and keeps the village refreshed and moving forward, even as it honors a vital part of BWR history.

All Boyfriend Village contributors are paid for their work.

2026 Boyfriend Village: Playground Boyfriend

Black Warrior Review is seeking submissions of all genres for our tenth edition of Boyfriend Village: Playground Boyfriend.

For many of us, the playground is where we first act out dominant societal institutions: performing weddings, playing house, or building business empires from woodchips. However, the playground is also where the boundaries of those institutions can dissolve entirely. Yes, the wedding is still on, but today, the brides are both mermaid horses with ice powers. The playground is space for experimenting with possibility. How high can you swing? How dizzy can you make yourself? If the jump skins your knee today, will it do the same tomorrow? This ground is where discovery happens, where exploration runs reckless, where rules can be more than broken; they can be thrown out entirely. We all love work which surprises the audience, but when does the artist surprise themself? Playground Boyfriend seeks art which embraces play, whether that be through wordplay and constraint, a spiritual release of control, a refusal to settle in one genre, a commitment to silliness, radical acts of imagination, or digging wormful holes in the dirt.

In most spaces, it isn’t proper to play. Play is treated as a luxury, a distraction, an unnecessary accessory to adult existence. Playground Boyfriend begs to disagree and argues that play is a vital mode of accessing what could be, and that work which plays can explore all stages of life. On the playground, there is room to move wildly without the bounds of itineraries, rules, or conventions of the restrictive here and now. Play towards a realized queer futurity, imagine the potential for new worlds, unshackle your art from all traces of colonialism, heteronormativity, or hyperindividualism—build a playground divorced from so-called reality. Bring Playground Boyfriend your disobedient grammars, your funky mix, your improper, your bold and wise. Leap from monkey bar to cumulus cloud, tongue out to gravity.

Playground Boyfriend invites you to disrespect authority, smash borders, make up the rules, turn office buildings to jungle gyms. There is no one form of playground—though we love tire swings and seesaws as much as anyone—because anywhere can become a playground, even trees and oceans and superstores and kitchen tables and grass blades and sewer systems and housefires. Claim new grounds for creativity. Let your play sprawl. Playground Boyfriend is here, one knee pressed in the mud, offering a blue raspberry Ring-Pop in exchange for your love, your rage, your melancholy, your bittersweet. We want your anything, so long as it plays.

This year’s editor is Tillie Lefforge, and you can learn more about her vision for this year’s Boyfriend Village on Instagram.

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions are open between May 15th, 2026, and June 15th, 2026. While themed, this is open to interpretation. If you think your boyfriend(s) might belong in our village, don’t hesitate—send them along!

There is one submission category for all genres. We accept fiction, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid, visual and multimedia art, as well as sound collage, video, games, and more. For graphic, audio, and visual work, if Submittable accepts the file type, so will we! Color images are welcome. If submittable doesn’t accept the file type, feel free to email us at:

onlineeditors.bwr@gmail.com 

You may use your cover letter to tell us as much or as little about yourself & your work as you like. Simultaneous submissions are welcome. 

Though we welcome submissions of all forms of art, the following are general guidelines on length: 

• For prose, under 6000 words is preferable.
• For flash (pieces under 1000 words), you may include up to three pieces.
• For poetry, five poems or less is ideal.

Again, these are just guidelines; they’re here to give you an idea of the typical length we’re willing to accept. For submissions that can’t be measured by word count, just keep in mind how much time is needed to fully engage with the work. We suggest that you look through past issues of Boyfriend Village as a guide on what would be an appropriate length to submit.

AI Statement: Work that has been created in any part with the assistance of AI tools is not eligible for submission or publication.

There is a $5 submission fee. Submission fees are used to compensate contributors. If you need a fee waiver for any reason, please email us at:

feewaiver.bwr@gmail.com

to request one.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: Qu Literary Magazine

 

Submissions for the Winter 2027 issue will open on May 15, 2026 and remain open until August 15, 2026.

Payment Upon Publication: $100 per prose piece or visual art, $50 per poem, plus a copy of the magazine. Alternatively, contributors may opt to receive five copies of the magazine.

We do not accept previously published work or work generated with AI. While we gladly accept international submissions, we are unable to pay international contributors or send complimentary copies of the magazine internationally at this time.

Rights: Qu requires First North American Serial Rights to publication (electronic and print). All rights revert back to authors upon publication. We do, however, post everything we publish on the archive section of the website after print publication, and so require Nonexclusive Electronic Rights.

Qu is a literary magazine, published by the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. The Qu editorial staff is comprised of current students and recent graduates.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: Cahava Literary Journal

Cahava (meaning “proverb” in Urdu/Hindi) is an international literary journal dedicated to championing remarkable voices in the literary world. We strive to introduce up-and-coming writers to a wider audience.

Cahava publishes pieces that explore the human condition - short stories that make you laugh to poems that may make you cry. Most importantly, we look for work that offers a new perspective on the world around us; or perhaps just help understand ourselves a little better.

Cahava is an international online literary journal, published quarterly. Each issue features a thoughtfully curated selection of poetry and fiction.

We welcome submissions of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and prose poetry. All work must be original, unpublished, and written in English. Translations are also welcome, provided that appropriate permissions have been secured.

We accept submissions year-round and do not charge a submission fee.

Submission - Summer 2026

Deadline - Jun 15, 2026

Status - Open

Prose
Submissions up to 3,000 words, including:

Short stories

Novel excerpts

Creative nonfiction

Personal essays (literary or general interest)

Play scripts

Postcard stories

Compensation: $0.05 (CAD) per word

Poetry
Submit up to five original poems of any style. Individual poems must not exceed three pages in length.

Compensation: Higher of $10 or $0.05 (CAD) per word

Additional Notes

Simultaneous submissions are accepted; however, notify us immediately (contact@cahava.com) if your piece is accepted elsewhere.

Previously published work (in print, online, or digital) will not be considered.

Response time: up to 8-10 weeks.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions from Writers Under Age 25: Afterbodies

Thank you so much for choosing Afterbodies to house your beautiful work!

We are currently accepting submissions of poetry and prose from all writers under the age of 25. 

Our reading periods are May 10th—July 1st and October 10th—December 1st. We seek writing that tacks, cajoles, and resurfaces the unseen. To submit, please use our Duosuma listing.

We pay a flat honorarium of $20 per accepted contributor. Please submit up to 10 pages of written work per reading period. We will endeavor to get back to you within three to four weeks. We kindly ask that you submit only once per reading cycle, and refrain from submitting AI-assisted work or work which conveys a harmful message. Simultaneous submissions are allowed.

Afterbodies receives first electronic serial rights to your piece upon publication. After publication, all rights revert back to the author. Please acknowledge Afterbodies as the first publication in future appearances. You can reach us at:

editors.afterbodies@gmail.com 

for questions and concerns.

Submit all poetry and prose through Duosuma: 

https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/afterbodies-iJ2WM 

Submitting through our submission form is preferred, but if you cannot access it for any reason, you may email your submission to us at:

editors.afterbodies@gmail.com

Please format your email header as “[Name] - [Genre] Submission”, and include a cover letter and a personal bio.

For poetry, please send up to five single-spaced poems, starting each poem on a new page. PDF.

For prose, send up to three pieces double-spaced, with a total word count of less than 5,000 words. PDF.

​We will get back to you in under three to four weeks. Feel free to query on the status of your submission after four weeks. If you need to withdraw your submission, please email:

editors.afterbodies@gmail.com

Writing Competition: International Voices in CNF: Vine Leaves Press

International Voices in CNF 

Submission Guidelines:

1. Eligibility:

• The competition is open to writers worldwide.

• Submissions must be in English and unpublished (that includes self-published). Submissions written by AI will be disqualified.

• VLP authors and staff are not eligible to enter.

• We welcome submissions from marginalized voices including, but not limited to:

Age

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)

Body positivity

Chronic illness

LatinX

LGBTQ+

Neurodivergent

People living with disabilities (intellectual and physical)

People living with HIV

People with a history of incarceration

Sex workers

Undocumented people

Unhoused people

Women

2. Next Submission Period:

• Submissions open on February 1, 2026.

• Submissions close on July 1, 2026, at 11:59 PM (UTC+2).

3. Submission Process:

• Submit your creative nonfiction manuscript via Submittable.

• Each submission requires a $28 entry fee, payable through Submittable.

4. Formatting Guidelines:

• If the manuscript is narrative in nature (i.e. a memoir) then the length should be between 50,000 – 80,000 words, give or take within reason.

• If the manuscript is experimental in nature (i.e. not straight prose, could be vignettes, poetry, or a mix), it should be at least 100 pages long.

• Submissions must be in a standard font (e.g., Times New Roman) and size (12pt), double-spaced.

• Include the title of your manuscript at the beginning.

5. Anonymity:

• Please ensure that your submission does not contain any biographical information on the front. PLEASE NOTE: There is no need to be anonymous in your actual manuscript (it's nonfiction!). We just don't want it to be obvious for the initial selection process so we can be certain that our readers aren't swayed by the demographics of the author before they start reading.

6. Multiple Entries:

• You may submit multiple entries to the competition, each requiring a separate entry fee.

7. Judging Process:

• Judges will assess entries based on originality, creativity, writing quality, and adherence to the genre.

• The judging process is blind (as it can possibly be, since it's nonfiction), ensuring impartiality and fairness. ​

​8. Notification Timeline:

• Longlist: October 2026

• Shortlist: December 2026

• Winner: January 2027

9. Prizes:

• The winner will receive a cash prize of $1000.

• Publication of the winning manuscript will occur in 2028 by Vine Leaves Press.

• Runners up will also be considered for publication.

10. Rights:

• By submitting your work, you grant Vine Leaves Press the right to publish your manuscript in print and digital formats.

11. Questions:

• For any inquiries regarding the competition or submission process, please contact us at:

 info@vineleavespress.com

12. Legal Notice:

• Vine Leaves Press reserves the right to amend any guidelines or dates related to the competition if necessary.

Call for Submissions: Radon

Radon welcomes short stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia.

​We publish quality literature the first of every February, June, and October.

Submissions are accepted year-round.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome.

Reprints no longer accepted as of 2025.

AI submissions are not allowed at Radon.

We kindly request a third-person bio that is 100-words or shorter in your cover letter.

Author rights:

For original work, Radon asks for first worldwide digital and print publication rights in English and non-exclusive archival rights.

Authors published in Radon cannot be accepted into the issue immediately following, but may submit after this period.

Our issue reading periods are:

​February: Sep. 1 – Dec. 31

​​​​June: Jan. 1 – April 30

​​​October: May 1 – Aug. 31

Prose

We accept flash fiction and short story submissions up to 5,000 words. Radon pays a semi-professional rate of 2.5¢ per word for original work. Fiction has a guaranteed $15 minimum.

For quicker processing, please use a submission style similar to the modern manuscript format. We ask that you utilize single-spacing. Please note that we do not publish fantasy stories and are looking for work that includes leftist social commentary.

Poetry

Please submit up to five poems in a single Word document. There is no line limit. Radon pays a semi-professional rate of $25 per poem. As of 2025, we don't accept reprints.

We request single-spaced formatting using a standard 11pt font such as Garamond, Times New Roman, Aptos, or Lato.

The poetry editor prefers free verse poems with narrative elements. Page and spoken word poems are equally welcome.

Are you an artist?

Radon is looking for evocative digital art to showcase in our published issues and on our website. We pay $110 for issue cover art, $50 for back cover art, and $20 for art used on our site.

​Please use our Submittable system to submit an application, accessible via the Submit button on this page. Due to ethical concerns, we do not accept AI-generated artwork.

​As an online publisher, we request digital artwork that is at least 300 DPI. Cover art submissions should fit in a 5.5 x 8.5 aspect ratio.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Mapping": Superpresent

Superpresent is a quarterly magazine of the arts. Superpresent is available free online and a limited run of print copies for each issue. Superpresent publishes poems, short stories, essays, visual art pieces, experimental art, video art, and sound art.

We accept submissions from anywhere in the world.

No fees for submission.

The theme for the Summer 2026 issue is MAPPING

We are are seeking poetry, short stories, essays, experimental art, video, sound art, all forms of visual art as well as asemic writing and textual arts of all kinds.

Submissions Due June 15th

Visual Art Guidelines: 

• We will accept art in JPEG format.

• Artwork must be 300 dpi or higher.

• All artwork must be at least 8.5’’ x 11’’ to fit in the magazine.

• Up to three images may be submitted

• Please include titles for images

Written Guidelines : 

• We accept submissions in DOC, DOCX, and RTF formats.

• For poetry, up to three poems, one per page

• Essays and short stories should be 500-2000 words.

Video and Sound Guidelines: 

• Send a link to the video or sound file posting (YouTube, etc)

• Provide a short description of the piece (up to 100 words)

• For videos provide up to three still images

Include a 50-100 word bio written in the third person with your submission.

Please send your submissions to:

editor@superpresent.org

Copyright and publication specifications: First Serial Rights

Publication Announcement

 I'm very pleased to share the publication of my review of Alicia Bay Laurel's graphic novella, Earth & Aetherias, in the latest issue of Tiferet Journal. You can find the review here on page 167: 

https://tiferetjournal.com/tiferet-journal-spring-summer-2026-issue/

And do check out Alicia's novella. It's both a romantasy and a coloring book. Ordering information is included with my review. I've pasted a copy of the gorgeous cover below.

 

Call for Submissions:The ANA

 

 SUBMISSIONS OPEN: MAY - JUNE 2026 

 While all rights revert to the contributors, The Ana must be noted as the first site of publication.

 We prioritize BIPOC, Queer, and working-class people.

FICTION · NON-FICTION · ESSAY · CROSS-GENRE LITERATURE

 Submit up to 3 works of prose.

 Each prose work must be up to 4,000 words max.

 Submit each piece individually.

 We only accept docx.

 POETRY · POETRY IN TRANSLATION

 Submit up to 3 poems.

 We only accept docx.

 Submit each piece individually.

 If you submit Poetry in Translation, please include context for the translation and the original poem.

 VISUAL ART

 Submit up to 5 works of visual art.

 We do not accept work created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

 We only accept jpegs.  

Submit your work here. 

Writing Competitions: Blue Earth's Dog Daze Summer Contest

Dog Daze Summer Contest Guidelines

Blue Earth Review is looking for ambitious and exuberant works of flash fiction, essay, memoir, and short poetry that offer insight, complicate existing conversations, and that enrich our understanding of what it means to be human in an increasingly complex world.

Grand prize: One $500 prize per genre & publication.

Deadline: August 21, 2026

The current contest season is 2026. Submissions are currently: Open.

Submission fee per genre is $5, non-waivable and non-refundable. One submission per participant is allowed. Only submissions made through our official Submittable portal are accepted. Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Notify us immediately if the piece is accepted elsewhere. Participants must be United States residents or valid US taxpayers. Split winnings are not allowed. Winners will be paid the full $500 upon confirmation and processing as allowed by our affiliated institution, Minnesota State University–Mankato. Payment will be received on or after publication of the featured magazine. Contact us with any questions.

Alumni of Minnesota State University–Mankato must wait a minimum of 5 years after graduation to be eligible to submit to Blue Earth Review.

Flash Fiction

Submit up to two flash fiction pieces of no more than 750 words each. If you include multiple pieces, please include them both in a single file (.doc or .docx).
Winner: $500 prize and publication
Submissions: Open

Flash Creative Nonfiction

Submit up to two flash creative nonfiction pieces of no more than 750 words each. If you include multiple pieces, please include them both in a single file (.doc or .docx).
Winner: $500 prize and publication
Submissions: Open.

Submit up to three poems per submission in a single file (.doc or .docx). Max 5 pages.
Winner: $500 prize and publication
Submissions: Open.

Submit your entry here.

Call for Submissions: The Waxed Lemon

 

SUBMISSIONS

To submit your work for issue 11 of The Waxed Lemon, please review the submission guidelines below.

To submit, you will click on the link where you will be taken to a Google form. Please answer all the relevant questions and then upload your submission as either a Word document or a PDF file.

Submission Guidelines

PLEASE DO NOT submit to more than one category.

Work should not have previously been published in print or on social media.

Send no more than 3 poems. Poems should be no more than 30 lines long.

Send 1 piece of flash fiction. Flash should be under 500 words.

Send 1 story. Story should be under 2000 words.

We are not accepting ART submissions at this time.

Gaeilge agus Fáilte. Irish language submissions encouraged.

Submit your work in a single file as a Word attachment in .doc or .docx or as a PDF. ​

Please use single spacing and 12 point standard font.

​ Submit only during open submission periods - Monday 4th May 2026 to Saturday 3oth May 2026.

​ Send any queries to:

 thewaxedlemonsubs@gmail.com

​Submissions which fail to adhere to the above criteria will not be considered.

​​​The Waxed Lemon is a two-person organization and for this reason it can take up to 16 weeks before we can respond to submissions. We are aware that this is a long time to wait. Therefore, we are happy to accept simultaneous submissions. We just ask that if work you have submitted to us is accepted elsewhere, that you let us know as soon as possible.

​Pilot Payment Scheme

The Waxed Lemon is introducing a payment scheme for Issue 11.

Contributors will receive €50 per poem, €50 per flash fiction piece, and €100 per short story published.

This is a pilot payment scheme. We are grateful to the The Arts Office, Waterford City & County Council for their support of this scheme.

All contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the issue in which they are published.

Submission link here. 

Call for Submissions: Kestrel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kestrel publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by established and emerging writers. We are especially happy to publish work by West Virginia and Appalachian writers. Kestrel features reviews and visual art in each issue.

Kestrel is now accepting submissions year-round. Submissions are only accepted through Submittable.

Poetry: Kestrel welcomes poems of all genres, styles, and traditions, including experimental and hybrid forms, as well as poetry in translation. Send 3-5 of your best poems during one of our reading periods.

Poetry in Translation: Submissions of poetry in translation are encouraged. We prefer to publish bilingual translations (on facing pages), and we require clear permission from the original poet for the translation and for printing their work in the original (unless the work is in the public domain).

Fiction: Kestrel is open to any genre of short fiction that questions assumptions and moves us to reconsider everyday life. We enjoy stories with believable plots, developed characters, consistent points-of-view, vivid and symbolic settings, true dialogue, and thought-provoking themes, though we also enjoy experimental writing that makes new the expected conventions. 5,000 words maximum.

Non-Fiction: Creative nonfiction, memoir, or literary essays are preferred. Subject matter may vary but attention to writing as craft and art is paramount; the attention to diction, syntax, and detail should delight and surprise. We appreciate writing that makes a subject's complexity understandable and its familiarity new. We expect non-fiction to be non-fiction.

Reviews: Please query via email. See featured reviews at:

www.fairmontstate.edu/kestrel

Visual Art: Submissions to Kestrel may be made in any medium. Image resolution should be at least 300 dpi and in .jpg format. We publish full-color and black and white images. Kestrel may use images for publicity purposes.

Wrongfully Neglected: Kestrel invites recommendations, reflections, and reviews of individual texts (poems, short stories, essays) or books that fall outside the conventional guidelines for reviews, in terms of publication age (typically under 2 years), length (500 words and up), and voice. We would like to read pieces that show our readers why overlooked or forgotten literature published more than 2 years ago should be hunted down and read (or reread) immediately. Form and formality may vary, but writing must be vivid and engaging. Length should exceed a typical blurb but stop by the end of a Kestrel page (about 750 words). Submissions that do not meet these guidelines will be declined.

Only previously unpublished work will be considered. Kestrel retains first North American rights only. Contributors receive one copy and a one year subscription. Address your submission to the appropriate editor (fiction, poetry, nonfiction, visual art). Simultaneous submissions are accepted; immediate notification of a manuscript accepted elsewhere is expected.

Note: For submissions received January-May and August-November, allow six months for our response before inquiring. Restrict submissions to one per calendar year.

All accepted work is for the print publication; select work may be featured on our website. Kestrel submits each issue to Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and Vox Populi, and, therefore, work published in Kestrel may be chosen for reprint in those venues.

Submittable is our only method for submissions.

Writing Competition: The Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Writers

The Catamaran Poetry Prize encourages the submission of previously unpublished poetry manuscripts across a range of styles, themes, and forms. This contest is for a book length collection of poetry only. Manuscripts of fiction, creative nonfiction, translations, or screenplays are ineligible. The prize is only open to West Coast poets living in California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii. All submissions should be written in English.

A prize of $1,000 will and publication in book form will be awarded to poet for the winning poetry collection selected by the judge for publication.

All poets who have entered their manuscript in the contest will receive a complimentary, one-year subscription to our literary journal Catamaran.

Submissions must be received between February 15, 2026 and July 1, 2026 in order to be considered for publication. No late submissions will be accepted.

Manuscripts must be typed, paginated, and between 60-100 pages in length. Poems in the collection must be the original work of the author and previously unpublished in a book length collection. Poems can be published previously in print magazines or online journals. Publication acknowledgments should be included for previously published work. Please ensure all included quotations are clearly attributed to the author.

Simultaneous submissions and multiple submissions are acceptable. Please send us an email at editor@catamaranliteraryreader.com and let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

Submissions will be read blind, without identification of the author, so please remove your name from the title page and content of the manuscript itself. Because the reviews will be made blind, former students of the judge are not disqualified. Previous manuscript submissions to a prior contest are also not disqualified, and may be entered again.

Revisions are not allowed to the manuscript after it has been submitted to the contest. However, the winning poet will have time to revise the collection before publication. Catamaran reserves the right to get approval from the judge if revisions are significant.

If our staff encounters any difficulties in processing your submission we will contact you to obtain a correction. Minor errors in your submission (spelling, formatting, typographic errors) do not affect your chance of winning.

The winner will be announced on the Catamaran website in September, 2026, and we expect to publish the winning collection in January 2026. We will also announce the names of finalists and semifinalists in September 2026 on our website. We will send a Submittable notification of the manuscripts selected as winner and finalists in September, 2026.

Reminder: this is a BLIND submission. Please remove your name from all pages of the manuscript, including from the title page. Manuscripts with identifying information will be "opened for editing" and not entered into the contest until the poet removes identifying information from all pages. Do not include names of people you would like to thank and acknowledge in your submission. These types of acknowledgements can be included and published with the winning manuscript.

Catamaran will host a book launch event and reading in December 2025. The book will also be entered for publication awards.

This year's judge is Joseph Millar. 

Submit your entry here.

Entry Fee: $45.00 (Includes subscription to Catamaran and a copy of the winning poetry collection.)

Call for Submissions: Public School Poetry

Public School Poetry publishes two online issues each year: a Back-to-School Issue in September, and a Spring Break Issue in April. Please note that while we invoke public school tropes for the identity of this journal, we are not asking for school-specific poems or student-specific submitters. Please read the guidelines below and then send us work you’re passionate to share with us!

We have two reading periods each year:

October 15th - December 1st

April 15th - June 1st

Submit 4-6 unpublished poems in one file that does not exceed ten pages to our Submittable account. When you get to Submittable, you will also be asked to fill out a brief enrollment form instead of a letter. The enrollment form is primarily our checkpoint that you know what we're about and really want to be a part of it.

​Poets selected will be published under the condition that they write “a five-paragraph essay” (300-600'ish words) on a fellow contributor’s poem packet for the issue. Contributors are randomly and anonymously assigned their packet by the Public School Poetry Vice Principals shortly after being accepted to the issue. This exchange is a vital part of our mission to democratize craft talk and poetry engagement.

We ask that these "five-paragraph essays" engage explicitly with the poems in order to guide our readers back to them with renewed/different understanding. We encourage contributors to consider the “five-paragraph essay” as a structure to play with/use in much the same way you might approach a sonnet or an ekphrasis. Essays can be as lyrical or analytical as you like as long as there’s five parts/units/paragraphs. Contributors are not obligated to address every poem and we won’t edit your essay or ask for revisions as long as it does this work and follows our school spirit guidelines:

• We are here to lift each other up, not put each other in trash cans

• We love questions and paradoxes, and we value insight over criticism

• We are generous to styles, subjects, tones, forms, and aesthetics that differ from our own our own

We only have room to publish a handful of writers. If your pieces aren’t selected, please know we still read them with care and are cheering you on from the bleachers. If your pieces are selected, please note that you are agreeing to give Public School Poetry first serial publication rights. After publication, all rights revert back to you, the author. 

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: The Journal of Compressed Arts

The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts is looking for, as you might guess, “compressed creative arts.” We accept fiction and creative nonfiction, as long as they are compressed in some way. Work is published weekly, without labels, and the labels here only exist to help us determine its best readers. Our response time is generally 1-5 days. Also, our acceptance rate is currently about 2% of submissions.

We pay writers $50 per accepted piece and signed contract.

Submissions are open from March 15 to June 15 and September 15 to December 15.

If you’ve been previously published by the press, please wait a year until submitting again. Thanks.

Here are a baker’s dozen of things Matter Press definitely doesn’t want:

• conversations in bars, cafes, restaurants, cars, hikes, or in some unexplained space where disembodied voices think they are way more interesting and clever than they are

• anything written “after.” Nothing in conversation with, inspired by, or an homage to a preceding poem, artwork, or other text. Before is okay.

• line break poetry or poetry written as prose with / between the lines where the line break would be

• Pieces “after” the action, so that the protagonist does nothing except moments of glancing, thinking, reflecting, noticing, sitting, wondering, brushing, dreaming…

• odd names of characters like Friglep or Zueron or Noir or anything that isn’t a name

• a strange writing pseudonym that is a bunch of senseless letters strung together

• the heading on a piece that still has the name of the writing teacher, English teacher, professor—along with the name of the class

• yeah, the world is awful, the president is awful, the climate is awful, ICE is awful. It’s all awful. We know. No need to tell us. We 100% get it.

• second-person stories. You can send such a story to your other favorite literary magazines; you do not need to send it here.

• pieces that assume we will automatically care about your piece because you wrote it. We won’t. The piece needs to make us care. And pretty quickly. There are 100s of pieces in the slush pile. We aren’t a writing workshop that has no choice but to read each piece carefully and closely and lovingly because everyone knows everyone. We have choices. Hundreds of them.

• the appearance of Jesus, God, or any holy being

• writing about writing

• any questions about the above

The reader for your submission is, during this round of submissions, the managing editor.

Please be sure to submit in the correct category; we’ve been receiving several fiction submissions in the creative nonfiction category. For all submitters, we aren’t as concerned with labels—hint fiction, prose poetry, micro fiction, flash fiction, and so on—as we are with what compression means to you. In other words, what form “compression” takes in each artist’s work will be up to each individual. However, we don’t publish erotica or work with strong, graphic sexual content. In short, we want to fall in love with your work. That might happen in the way we’ve fallen in love with work we’ve previously published, or it might happen in a way we have yet to experience. Maybe reading that other work will help in knowing whether you should send your work to us, but in truth, such a thing might not be discoverable. Here are things that matter:

Please do not include a cover letter as part of the manuscript document.

Please include, as part of your cover letter on Submittable, a brief bio. Also, in the cover letter, let us know why you feel this piece works for a journal obsessed with “compression.”

Please no more than one submission of a single piece in each genre at a time. Please feel free to submit again after receiving a response, but please no more than 3 submissions per genre per reading period.

Simultaneous submissions are fine with us, but please let us know if the submission has been accepted elsewhere. Failure to do will result in some facsimile of your face being put on the Matter dart board. And no one wants that.

Please format prose to be singled-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, in a Microsoft Word document, with an extra space between each paragraph.

If you’ve been previously published by The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, please wait a year before submitting again.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Nonfiction Submissions: Tolka Journal

Tolka 

Submissions are now open until midnight 31 May.

Please read through our submission guidelines before submitting.

Submission guidelines

We publish all forms of non-fiction: personal essay, memoir, reportage, travel writing, auto-fiction, and the writing that falls in between.

Our guideline word count for work is 1,000–3,000 words.

All submissions should be previously unpublished.

Submissions should be in one .doc, .docx or PDF attachment and double-spaced.

We are happy to consider simultaneous submissions but ask that you notify us should your work be accepted elsewhere.

We offer contributors a flat fee of ‎‎€600, which we pay prior to publication. Contributors also receive a copy of the issue in which their work is featured, and are invited to read at our launch.

We only accept submissions through our website.

We publish work by Irish and international writers.

For practical and economic reasons, we discourage the use of images unless integral to a piece of writing.

We encourage submissions from writers who are underrepresented in the arts, due to their socio-economic background, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or disability.

All submissions will be closely read but, due to the volume of submissions, we are unable to offer individual feedback. We aim to provide a response within three months of the submission closing date.

We strongly advise familiarising yourself with the kind of writing we publish before submitting. We are always open to new ventures.

Submissions must be original work and cannot infringe upon the right or copyright of any person or entity. We do not publish AI-generated work, unless explicitly created for artistic purposes, and clearly framed as such.

Copyright remains, in all cases, the property of the author.

After you make your submission, you will see a message of confirmation, but you will not receive a confirmation email.

Submit your work here. 

Writing Competition: The 2027 International Voices in Creative Nonfiction Competition: Vine Leaves Press

The 2027 International Voices in Creative Nonfiction Competition is now open for submissions.

Submission Guidelines:

1. Eligibility:

The competition is open to writers worldwide.

Submissions must be in English and unpublished (that includes self-published). Submissions written by AI will be disqualified.

VLP authors and staff are not eligible to enter.

We welcome submissions from marginalized voices including, but not limited to:

Age
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)
Body positivity
Chronic illness
LatinX
LGBTQ+
Neurodivergent
People living with disabilities (intellectual and physical)
People living with HIV
People with a history of incarceration
Sex workers
Undocumented people
Unhoused people
Women 

2. Next Submission Period:Submissions open on February 1, 2026.
Submissions close on July 1, 2026, at 11:59 PM (UTC+2).

3. Submission Process:Submit your creative nonfiction manuscript via Submittable.
Each submission requires a $28 entry fee, payable through Submittable.

4. Formatting Guidelines:

If the manuscript is narrative in nature (i.e. a memoir) then the length should be between 50,000 – 80,000 words, give or take within reason.

If the manuscript is experimental in nature (i.e. not straight prose, could be vignettes, poetry, or a mix), it should be at least 100 pages long.

Submissions must be in a standard font (e.g., Times New Roman) and size (12pt), double-spaced.
Include the title of your manuscript at the beginning.

5. Anonymity:
Please ensure that your submission does not contain any biographical information on the front. PLEASE NOTE: There is no need to be anonymous in your actual manuscript (it's nonfiction!). We just don't want it to be obvious for the initial selection process so we can be certain that our readers aren't swayed by the demographics of the author before they start reading.

6. Multiple Entries:
You may submit multiple entries to the competition, each requiring a separate entry fee.

7. Judging Process:Judges will assess entries based on originality, creativity, writing quality, and adherence to the genre.

The judging process is blind (as it can possibly be, since it's nonfiction), ensuring impartiality and fairness.

​8. Notification Timeline:

Longlist: October 2026
Shortlist: December 2026
Winner: January 2027

9. Prizes:

The winner will receive a cash prize of $1000.
Publication of the winning manuscript will occur in 2028 by Vine Leaves Press.
Runners up will also be considered for publication.

10. Rights:
By submitting your work, you grant Vine Leaves Press the right to publish your manuscript in print and digital formats.

11. Questions:
For any inquiries regarding the competition or submission process, please contact us at:

info@vineleavespress.com

12. Legal Notice:
Vine Leaves Press reserves the right to amend any guidelines or dates related to the competition if necessary.

Writing Competition: Terrain.org

 

Terrain.org

More than $5,000 in prizes! $1,000 grand prize in each genre and $200 to finalists.

Deadline: September 7, 2026

We accept contest submissions from May 1 to U.S. Labor Day. The deadline for our 16th Annual Contest is September 7, 2026, for publication in February and March 2027.

How to Submit

We do not accept submissions created by or with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

You are not eligible to enter this contest if you are a current student of the contest judges or if you have been a winner in the contest in the last five years. Finalists are welcome to submit again.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but previously published material in any format, including blogs or social media, will not be considered. Submissions can be withdrawn through the submission system, though in that case contest entry fees will not be refunded. Individual components of submissions (i.e., a single poem in a poem set) may be withdrawn by sending a message through Submittable.

Cost

The cost to submit is $20 per story, essay or article, or set of 1-5 poems.

What to Submit

You may submit up to three entries (at $20/entry) in any or all genres:

Poetry
Submit 1-5 poems per entry. Combine all poems into a single document. For poetry, we are seeking the single best poem or set of poems. The entire submission must not exceed 7 pages. Poems must contain only the poem title(s) and poem(s) without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer).

Fiction
Submit one story, up to 5,000 words total, or up to 2 flash fictions, up to 1,000 words each, per entry. Stories must contain only the story title and story itself without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer).

Nonfiction
Submit one essay or article, up to 5,000 words total, or up to 2 flash essays, up to 1,000 words each, per entry. Essays must contain only the essay title and essay itself without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer). We will consider all nonfiction, but are most interested in creative nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, literary journalism, and other literary forms.

The Submission Process

Submissions and payment for the 15th Annual Contest are conducted on our Submittable site.

Submit from May 1 – September 7!

Call for Submissions: The Maine Review

 

The Maine Review seeks outstanding contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including works in translation and hybrid forms. We are pleased to publish new, emerging, and established writers, and are committed to supporting representation, innovation, and literary artistry.

We encourage submitters to read what we’ve published, and whatever you send our way, please carefully read our guidelines. Submissions that do not adhere to them may be unread.

We will not publish work that normalizes hatred of any marginalized group or individual, though submitted work may thoughtfully consider subjects of discrimination.

We do not publish academic papers or news writing.

We do not publish AI-generated work. Such work will be automatically declined.

General Guidelines:

• We accept submissions only through Submittable. Submissions must be previously unpublished in print and online.

• We encourage simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw your submission immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. If only part of a submission must be withdrawn, please notify us using Submittable's "message" function.

• We encourage submissions from writers of all backgrounds, including but not limited to LGBTQIA+ writers, BIPOC writers, female-identifying writers, unpublished writers, writers with disabilities, and economically marginalized writers.

• Please address cover letters to the appropriate genre editor. In prose submissions, please include your word count in your cover letter.

• We ask that contributors whose work we've published wait at least one year before submitting again.

• Please send only one submission at a time. We do not accept and cannot refund multiple submissions.

• Please allow us six months before querying.

Fiction and Nonfiction Formatting:

• 12-point Times New Roman font

• Double-spaced

• 1” margins

• Pages numbered

• Please include the word count in your cover letter

• One piece of 3,000 words or fewer (though we will consider longer works of exceptional merit) or three flash pieces no more than 1,000 words each

Poetry Formatting:

• 12-point Times New Roman font

• Single-spaced (or as you would like the poem to appear online)

• Pages numbered

• Maximum three poems, no more than five pages total

Submission Schedule:
We are open for nonfiction, fiction, and poetry submissions from May 1–May 21. We frequently open week-long free submission periods, during which general submission periods are paused. 

We publish issues biannually in the spring and fall, and nominate for Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and other awards.

Submission Fees:

We are a nonprofit organization and ask writers to pay a $3 fee per submission, of which we receive $1.86. This fee directly supports our authors, editors, and programs, and helps cover Submittable costs. If this submission fee is a barrier, please email info@mainereview.com for a link to a fee-waived submission. No explanation is needed. *Please do not email us your submission.*

All donations are tax-deductible and direct donations of any amount are also welcome at mainereview.com/donate. No matter what you give, we are grateful for your contribution and support of our publication!

Writer Payment:

Fiction and Nonfiction writers receive a $25 honorarium per published flash (1,000 words or fewer) and a $50 honorarium for work 1,001 words or more.

Poets receive a $25 honorarium per published poem.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: Four Way Review

 

Four Way Review accepts poetry and fiction from both established and emerging authors. We look for work that demonstrates fine attention to craft while retaining a powerful and compelling voice. We want writing that showcases the imagination’s unique ability to refine the raw materials of human experience.

We encourage submissions from diverse voices.

Unsolicited submissions are considered year-round. Before submitting, please see our latest issue and ensure your work is a good fit. Please wait to hear back from us before submitting again.

We accept .pdf (preferred), .doc, and .docx. You may also include a cover letter with your contact information and a brief bio in the “comments” box. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please note this in your cover letter and let us know immediately if a piece is accepted somewhere else. Due to a high volume of submissions, we cannot respond individually to withdrawal requests.

In order to offer our writers a small honorarium, we now charge a small submission fee of $3 for part of the year. In January, April, August and November, all submissions are fee-free. During these months, we might close submissions for one or more genres, should the submission maximum be reached. This is done to ensure that our readers are able to read and respond to each submission in a timely manner.

Poetry

— We are interested in all styles and forms of poetry.

— We ask that writers submit poetry no more than three times per year, with three to five poems in a single submission.

— Please email us to withdraw individual poems.

Fiction

— We’re looking for finished stories that are both whole and surprising.

— Keep longer submissions below 6,000 words. Submit only one piece at a time and no more than three pieces a year.

— Short shorts should be under 1,000 words. You may submit up to three flash pieces in one submission.

Translation

— We are interested in all styles and forms of writing in translation.

— We ask that writers submit work no more than three times a year, adhering to our guidelines for poetry, fiction and nonfiction (i.e., no more than three to five poems in a single submission and keeping prose below 6,000 words).
— If possible, please include the original piece with your translated submission.

— Please confirm that you have obtained permission, either from author or rights holder, to publish the translation.

Creative Nonfiction

— We’re looking for pieces that surprise us, pieces that push at the corners of the form.

— Keep longer submissions below 6,000 words. Submit only one piece at a time and no more than three pieces a year.

— We do accept flash nonfiction. These should be under 1,000 words. You may submit up to three flash pieces in one submission.

All submissions must be previously unpublished. We request first North America serial rights for any work that we accept. All rights revert to the author upon publication, though we ask that you acknowledge Four Way Review if the work is published elsewhere.

You can withdraw your work using our submissions manager. To withdraw part of a submission, email us at:

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

We try to respond within 90 days. Please note that our submissions manager is separate from the manager for Four Way Books. We will not respond to manuscript submissions.

We accept submissions through our online submissions manager. Unsolicited email submissions will be discarded unread.

Call for Submissions: The Celestial Glossary Literary Magazine

Submissions Open May 1st!

The first 100 submissions are free, after we have reached our limit there will be a $3 dollar fee to submit. This fee will be used to help us pay our authors.

Estrella House Publishing accepts work from new and established authors. Our interests are in poetry that questions and maintains a sense of beauty, narrative or not. We want fiction with an intriguing narrative or characters. Nonfiction should leave us seduced and thoughtful.

Whatever you write, bewitch us! Allow us to be absorbed in your world.

We do not, and will not, accept any works that promote any form of hatred, bigotry, or violence.

Likewise, AI-generated works will not be considered nor accepted. Please do not send it in

Format
Length Fiction and creative nonfiction: 1 piece up to 7,000 words
Comic strips: up to 15 pages
Visual art submissions: up to 4 per submission
Poetry: up to 5 poems per submission

Please only submit once per open call.

Genre

While we do not limit around genre, certain genres will have a lower chance of success. Those genres are:

Sci-Fi
Erotica
Mystery
Thriller
Technical Specifications

Please submit your manuscripts in any legible 12-point font with double-spaced paragraphs, page numbers in the footer, and 1-inch margins.

Please ensure that all written submissions are in one document.

On page 1 please include the author’s name, submission title, genre, and 75 character bio.

If you are writing in genre fiction, please make a note of that genre as well.

How to Submit

We consider submissions online via submission portal only. Snail or e-mail submissions will not be considered.

We do not consider unsolicited submissions via email.

Simultaneous Submissions

We are happy to consider manuscripts that have also been submitted elsewhere. Though, please notify us immediately if your work is accepted by another journal.

Rights

Estrella House Publishing reserves First North American Rights to any work that is published on our platform.

We do not accept any work that has been previously published in a literary or arts journal, forum/archival site, or an online blog.

Payments

We are excited to pay our authors. Estrella House utilizes a revenue share system where authors get a portion of ad revenue generated from views to their work and a portion of submission fees. Because we are a new publication, we cannot yet guarantee any flat rates.

Fees

We are submission fee free for the first 100 writers. After that, we will have a small $3.00 fee to help pay our writers.

We offer a fee waiver for people who identify as a historically marginalized group. To apply: email us with the subject line: Fee Waiver – Your Name.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: Epiphany

 

We hope that when you read Epiphany, you'll get a sense of the great variety of stories, poems, essays, and genre-bending work that we like, and the themes to which we keep returning. We hope that you'll enjoy and connect with the work of your fellow writers, and that you'll feel you're a valued part of our community, rather than another writer sending beloved work into the unsympathetic void. We hope you'll see what makes us different.

***

Submissions for our Fall/Winter print issue are open May 1–June 15.

Submissions for our Spring/Summer print issue are open Nov 1–Dec 15.

Applications for our Fresh Voices Fellowship are open Sep 15–Nov 1.

Submissions to our Breakout Prize are open March 1–April 15.

In print, we pay $75 per poem and $175 per essay or story. Online, we pay $50 per poem and $150 per essay or story. Art payments are made on a sliding scale. Those facing financial hardship may request a fee waver via the contact form on our website. (In order to keep the contest sustainable for our editors, readers, and organization, there is a limit of 50 fee waivers available for the Breakout Prize.)

In order to keep the contest sustainable for our organization and our community, we are capping paid submissions at 300 per genre, and are offering 50 fee waiver applications to writers facing financial hardship. Our fee waiver cap of 50 has been reached. Please refrain from submitting fee waiver requests for this opportunity.

You can stay up to date on submission windows, as well as events, news, and opportunities by signing up for our newsletter by or following us on Instagram, Facebook, X, Bluesky, or Threads.

Before submitting to Epiphany, familiarize yourself with recent work we have published by checking out our website, buying a digital subscription, which provides full access to our current issues and 20+ year archives, or by subscribing to our print magazine.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Lifeline": Caesura 2026

Welcome to Cæsura 2026, this year’s theme is: LIFELINE.

What helps you feel grounded? How do you remember what you know? We live life with a constant sense of urgency and it is hard to filter through the chaos. What or who is your filter to calm, inspiration, and or radical joy?

Is your lifeline a pet or a nostalgic hideaway? Do you start your day humming a melody that you consider your own personal theme song? Maybe your lifeline is found in the pages of a favorite author. Maybe it is the joy you get from watching a bird visit a bird feeder.

It can be a turn of phrase from a loved one or an internal vow to avoid personal pitfalls. Maybe it’s the irony of a well crafted punchline that reminds you that hope exists because it makes you laugh. Maybe it is simply knowing that your child made it home safely at the end of a long day.

So, What is your Lifeline?

We accept submissions from March 15th–June 1st 2026 for the general public, June 15th 2026 for Poetry Center San Jose Members.

We have a print and online edition. During the submission process, you will be asked if you want to be considered for print, online or both. Submissions may be published on one format or the other. We rarely print pieces in both editions.

We accept unpublished work only. No reprints.

No AI submissions: We currently do not accept work from artificial intelligence (“AI”) generators or similar.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome. If your work is accepted elsewhere, please email:

caesura@pcsj.org 

to withdraw the whole or part of your submission.

Submissions sent to our email address will be disqualified.

Only one submission per genre per reading period.

Please do not mix genres together when submitting. Submit again for different genres.

All work must be submitted blind (no identifying information in the file). If identifying information is in the file, the submission is disqualified.

All written submissions should be in 12-point font. Garamond, Times New Roman, Georgia, Arial fonts okay.

Accepted file formats:

Writing: .doc, .docx, or .pdf

Visual Art: .pdf

Genres & Requirements

Poetry

• Submit up to 3 poems.

• Each poem may be up to 32 lines.

• All poems should be in one document.

Prose (Fiction, Nonfiction)

• Submit up to 3 pieces.

• Each piece may be up to 2,500 words.

• All prose pieces should be in one document.

Visual Art

• Submit up to 3 pieces

• All visual art disciplines are welcome, including:

Ceramics

Crafts

Drawings

Paintings

Mixed media

Digital art

All art should be in one document.

For the print edition, artwork may be reproduced at 6×9 inches or 12×9 inches depending on layout needs.

Response Time: We strive to set out responses 8 to 12 weeks after the end of the submission period. For inquires, please email:

caesura@pcsj.org

Submit your work here. 

Writing Residencies: PRAx Public Lands Collaborative Residency

Deadline: June 1, 2026

Location: Cabin at Shotpouch Creek

The Public Lands Collaborative Residency supports creative teams engaged in storytelling projects that have the potential to help re-imagine and shape the future of public lands in the United States.

Rooted in the belief that storytelling is a powerful tool for stewardship, the residency offers space, time, and financial support for residents to develop a project about public lands that leads to public engagements such as readings, publications, workshops, or collaborative community projects.

America’s public lands span more than 600 million acres of mountains, deserts, forests, and shorelines. From iconic National Parks to remnant prairies, from beloved recreation areas to critically important wildlife refuges, these lands are one of the largest shared experiments in collective stewardship on Earth.

Public lands remind us that democracy extends beyond human communities to include the soils, waters, and species with whom we share this continent. These lands are living systems and civic institutions, shaped by the push and pull between conservation and exploitation, recreation and restoration, and legacies of dispossession and the promise of shared stewardship. In this ever-shifting context, every trail, forest, and canyon can become a site of negotiation and debate. The stakes are high.

In a time of ecological and cultural transformation, these lands call us to rethink stewardship — not as ownership or control, but as an ongoing conversation across generations, disciplines, and cultures. Public lands invite questions about who belongs, who decides, and what values guide our shared future.

During the Public Lands Collaborative Residency, we invite residents to explore questions like: How does caring for the land reflect how we care for one another? How does caring for and managing these lands reflect who we are and who we aspire to be? How do public lands shape our cultural identity and our sense of what is possible in a changing world? How can collaborative inquiry across disciplines help us imagine alternative futures for public lands?

The residency takes place at a cabin on a 70-acre nature reserve that reflects a long-standing commitment to shared stewardship. Residents are invited to be in relationship with the land as both refuge and inquiry site while they reflect, ask questions, and shape their collaborative work.

The Public Lands Collaborative Residency is open to interdisciplinary collaborative pairs. One person in the pair must be a creative writer. The other person in the pair may be: An artist working in any discipline (e.g., visual arts, performing arts, sound, etc.)
Someone working in the humanities (e.g., historian, philosopher, theologian)
Someone working in ecology or a related science field
Another writer working in a distinct field (e.g., a creative nonfiction writer working with a poet, a fiction writer working with a policy writer)

The pair must demonstrate a work trajectory that addresses environmental issues or involves place-based inquiry, either through previous solo or collaborative projects.

We encourage applications from people whose work is informed by lived experience, cultural knowledge, or long-term engagement with place, including Indigenous, rural, and historically underrepresented communities. Applicants must be based in the U.S. and at least 18 years old at the time of application.

Selected residents will receive: 

• Exclusive use of the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek for up to three weeks from August 2026 to September 2027. The residency can be consecutive (i.e., three full weeks) or broken into shorter stays (e.g., three residencies of one week each). While most of these stays should include overlapping residency time with both collaborators present (the space has two bedrooms), some days may be split between the pair. For instance, two weeks are completed together, but each resident might complete a third week solo.

• Please read about the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek to make sure the space works for your collaboration.

• An honorarium of $3,000 per recipient, which may be used to cover travel costs to the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek during the residency period(s) and travel to Corvallis for the public event.

• Professional documentation of outcomes and promotional support for related events.

• A culminating opportunity for public presentation at PRAx at Oregon State University (e.g., participation in an exhibition, reading, performance).

Additional funding for shipping artwork to PRAx for an exhibition if needed.

More information and application link here.

Writing Competition: Willow Springs Press Spokane Prize in Short Fiction

 

 Entry Fee: $20.00**

**Discounted submission fee ($10 off) through May 15th, 2026.

Deadline: Nov. 2, 2026 

The Spokane Prize for Short Fiction is accepting submissions of short-story collections of at least three (3) pieces and a minimum of 100 pages. Collections may include no more than one novella when included with at least three short-story length pieces.

All authors, regardless of publication history, are eligible.

Current Eastern Washington University Creative Writing MFA students and alumni who have graduated within the past five years from Eastern Washington University's Creative Writing MFA are not allowed to submit.

The prize for the winning manuscript is $1,500 and publication by Willow Springs Books. The press will retain reprint, film, electronic, anthology, translation, foreign publication, and sight and sound rights.

Guidelines:

• Submissions must be original, book-length fiction manuscripts written in English. There is no maximum page count. Translations are not accepted.

• One manuscript per submission.

• Submissions will only be accepted electronically, via Submittable.

• Simultaneous submissions are allowed. If you have submitted your manuscript elsewhere, we request that you notify us immediately if you have an offer for publication.

• Manuscripts MUST CONTAIN page numbers and a table of contents.

• Please format your manuscript in 1.5 or double-spaced line spacing. Any standard font (Arial, Times New Roman, etc.) is acceptable. Please keep the font size between 12 and 14.

• Individual stories may have been previously published in journals, chapbooks, anthologies, or limited-edition volumes, but please note which pieces and where they have been published on an acknowledgments page. The collection as a whole must be previously unpublished.

• Authors do not need to be Spokane residents to submit. :)

Note: While we're open to submissions across many genres, the manuscripts that stand out to us are polished and exhibit the author's literary skill. We like stories with exciting and thought-provoking ideas, characters that feel real, and a confident authorial voice. We don't shy away from pieces that break boundaries, and we encourage authors to submit even if their work defies traditional literary conventions.

Submit here. 

Willow Springs Books reserves the right to reject any manuscript.

Call for Submissions: The Opiate

 

Founded in 2015, The Opiate is a quarterly literary magazine dedicated to publishing envelope-pushing work. We accept both print and online submissions. Flash fiction is preferred for online. Often, for poetry, we choose one piece for print and one for online. We accept criticism/essays for publication as well. There is no specific theme or criteria required in terms of the nature of the content, so long as it “moves” us, if you will. 

*For those submitting fiction, it is strongly recommended that you read our stance on “said” here.

The Opiate is seeking submissions for its Summer, Vol. 46 issue. Fiction, poetry, excerpts of novels/plays, criticism, non-fiction and creative non-fiction accepted. Please limit fiction/prose submissions to under 15,000 words (and ABOVE 1,500 words) and, if inclined, provide a brief summary of the content.

Categories: 

• Fiction/Nonfiction/Poetry

• Translations: Permitted.

• File types: .doc, .docx, .pages

• Number of Pieces: Up to 5 pieces per submission.

• Separate Files: Each piece must be submitted in a separate file.

• Anonymous submissions are not required.

• Simultaneous submissions are allowed.

• Reprints are allowed. (Please ask that the new publisher makes mention the piece was originally published in The Opiate)

• Multiple entries are not allowed.

• AI-assisted works are not allowed.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: foofaraw

 

General Guidelines

• Word Limit: Main Digital Zine 250-7500

• The Anthology 500-5000

• Novelette Guidelines 7500-15000

• Op-eds 750-1250

Pay Rate:

Fiction: $0.02 per word; up to $50
Poetry: $1 per line; up to $25
Op-ed/Satire/Cartoon: $15.00 

Language: English

Rights:

We request first serial rights and non-exclusive, indefinite archival rights. Any rights not used by the publisher within twelve months will return to the author.

Authors always own their writing and can take it and do whatever they'd like with it. We just get to publish it and share it with the world.

Requirements:

• We do not accept multiple submissions from a single person at a time (within a single submission type)

• We do not accept work created or assisted by AI.

What are we looking for

Fiction
Comics
Humor/Satire
Poetry
Op-eds
and anything else that fits the vibe

Fiction

The general areas/genres of interest for fiction in foofaraw are:

• Magical Realism

• Speculative Fiction

• Sci-Fi

• Fantasy

• Literary

• LGBTQIA+

• Horror

• Mystery

• Noir

• Odd / Surreal / Absurdist / Experimental

Mainstream authors we enjoy include: Robin Sloan, Cory Doctorow, Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Tamsyn Muir, Ray Nayler, Martha Wells, Corey J. White, and fiction from McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Uncanny Magazine, The New Yorker, Flash Fiction Online, GigaNotoSaurus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and The Paris Review.

Serialized works are welcome.

Magazine inspirations include Believer, The New Yorker, NY and London Review of Books, Real Review, Delayed Gratification, Cereal, New York, Monocle, The Modernist, and The Economist.

Recurring column ideas are welcome.

More information and submission portal here. 

Call for Submissions to Anthology: The Truth We Carry: An Anthology of Survivor Voices

The Truth We Carry: An Anthology of Survivor Voices is published once a year, with its debut issue forthcoming in March 2027. The anthology is focused on publishing creative work from survivors of domestic abuse and sex trafficking. While survivorship and/or lived experience with abuse or exploitation is a prerequisite to being published with The Truth We Carry, and we do expect submissions to deal with some aspect of being a survivor, your submission does not have to be autobiographical, and it can be fiction. The consistent element we look for an “aha!” moment about the survivor experience.

Philosophy:

The Truth We Carry, and the larger Survivor Storytellers Project at Safe Voices, are inspired by the belief that stories can change (and save) lives and the desire to create safe, nonjudgmental, and non-coercive opportunities for survivors to engage in storytelling.

Open Submission Period:

Submissions are accepted from late April through June 30 or until a cap of 300 submissions is reached, whichever comes first.

The basic guidelines for submissions are:

• The Truth We Carry publishes works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Works of flash and micro lengths are welcome.

• We prefer work that is under 3,000 words in length.

• We will consider previously published work as long as 12 months or more has passed since publication.

• Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please withdraw your submission if it’s published elsewhere.

• Please only submit one piece for consideration at a time.

• Do not send us anything that was created with AI. We reserve the right to rescind acceptances from any work found to be AI-generated.

• Please wait six weeks after submissions close before you inquire about your piece.

• Formatting requirements: Please submit .doc or .pdf files in 12-point easy-to-read (Times New Roman, Helvetica, or similar) font, double spaced.

• Safe Voices staff and volunteers who are working on the current issue of The Truth We Carry are ineligible to submit work. Those not involved with the current issue are welcome to submit work!

• There is no submission/reading fee to submit work.

• Please note: We aim for ~75% of published work to be from Maine survivors.

Payment:

Authors selected for publication will receive payment of $100 and a copy of the anthology.

Rights:

The Truth We Carry purchases First Serial Rights for submissions, while copyright remains with the author. Upon publication, rights revert to the author, though the journal retains the non-exclusive right to reprint the work online or in print with the author’s consent. Authors may reprint work elsewhere afterward, provided they credit The Truth We Carry with first publication.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Starving the Beast: Avoid Evil/Stay Online": Moocat

25th Anniversary Issue: Starving the Beast

On August 30, 2026, moocat.net will relaunch to mark 25 years of independent digital publishing. Submissions are now open for the inaugural issue centered on the theme: Starving the Beast: Avoid Evil/Stay Online.

Essays and narratives exploring the tension between the need to remain connected to the world online and the desire to stop “feeding the beast” of extractive social media and tech giants.

Datum Description
Deadline: June 30, 2026
Payment: $10 per piece + tip jar divvy
Tip Jar Divvy: 70% of what’s left after recoup of author payouts is split among contributors, up to $100 per author!

Inquiries: For anything other than submissions

Travel, Arts, and Letters

Continuing a 25-year tradition of “gentle moos,” I am looking for:

Essays: Personal essays that take the reader on a gentle little mind-ride

Travelogs: Dispatches from writers who travel and travellers who write 

Poetry: Original poetry 

Art: Visual art, including video 

Comedy: Satiric prose, humorous video, comic art, and, especially, Radio Comedy!

More information and submission links here. 

Call for Submissions: Salt Bloom Literary Journal

Salt Bloom Literary Journal invites submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for our annual print journal. We seek the work of both established and emerging writers.  

Our submission period is open from March 1 until May 30 and we accept work via Duotrope. We welcome (and appreciate) your best work and look forward to reading it!

Thank you for considering Salt Bloom! Below are the submissions guidelines:

• All submissions must include a brief cover letter that does not identify the writer by name. Format submissions as Either .doc or .docx, Use Times New Roman 12-point font, One-inch margins, Double-spaced (single-space is fine for poetry), and Include page numbers.

• Prose submissions, please submit no more than 3500 words. Prose includes flash, hybrid works, micro fiction and memoir, short plays, and play excerpts

• Poetry submissions, please submit up to 3 poems, up to 5 pages total, in one document, each poem to begin on a new page.

• You may submit in more than one genre, but only one submission per genre.

• Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere, and withdraw your submission.

• We will notify you of your submission status. Response time is anywhere from 3 to 5 months.

• If published, the writer will receive one complimentary issue of Salt Bloom.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: Roxnane Gay's The Audacity

THE AUDACITY, my newsletter, features an emerging writer twice a month. I define emerging writer as someone with fewer than three article/essay/short story publications and no published books or book contracts.

Please submit your best nonfiction and nonfiction only. I am interested in literary essays and memoir. Please submit only one essay at a time. Essays should be between 1500 and 4000 words. We may take up to eight weeks to respond but we will respond to all submissions.

All essays are paid a flat fee of $1000.

Submissions will only be accepted at https://gay.submittable.com/

I am interested in thoughtful essays, beautiful, intelligent writing, deep explorations, timelessness, and challenging conventional thinking without being cheap and lazy. I am interested in provocative work but we are not interested in senseless provocation. You don't have to cannibalize yourself to tell a compelling story. The essays in Unruly Bodies or that I have preciously published in The Audacity might give you a sense of what I like but I am always open to being surprised. I am not looking to publish anew what I've already published.

Again, I am only interested in nonfiction, which is to say no poetry, fiction, or anything else that is not nonfiction. I cannot stress this enough. I am only interested in nonfiction for the Emerging Writer Series.