Call for Submissions: Grain Magazine

Submissions are OPEN!

Published four times per year, Grain Magazine is an internationally acclaimed literary journal that publishes engaging, surprising, eclectic, and challenging writing and art by Canadian and international writers and artists.

Before submitting your work to Grain, we recommend you read a recent issue of the magazine.

Please adhere to the following guidelines and do not submit more than twice in one submission period (third and subsequent submissions will neither be read nor returned). If you have work currently under consideration by Grain, please do not submit again until you have received a response to that submission.

Grain has a nine-month submission period that runs from September 15th to June 15th. Manuscripts received outside of this window will be automatically rejected.

Types of Work We Consider

Send typed, unpublished material only (we consider work published online to be previously published). If work is submitted simultaneously, please let us know as soon as possible if it is accepted elsewhere. Please only submit work in one genre at one time.

Poetry: Individual poems, sequences, or suites up to a maximum of six pages.

Fiction: To a maximum of 3,500 words.

Literary Nonfiction: To a maximum of 3,500 words.

For fiction and nonfiction submissions, PLEASE PROVIDE A WORD COUNT.

Other writing: Queries for submissions of work in other forms (i.e. short plays, comics, etc.) are welcome. You may submit such queries through Submittable or by mail.

Visual work: Mainly by invitation, though queries are welcome. 

Contributor Payments

All contributors, regardless of genre, are paid $50 per page to a maximum of $250, plus two copies of the issue in which their work appears. Visual work published inside the magazine (in black and white) and on the cover (in colour) is paid at the same page rate as text contributions to a maximum of $500.

Rights

Grain purchases first Canadian serial rights and digital rights. Copyright remains with the writer or artist.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: Synthetic Reality

Fiction Story Content

We are looking for a wide range of stories. And, although we mainly deal in Science Fiction, Fantasy, SHTF, Slipstream, Horror, Sword and Sorcery and surreal fiction, we are also open to other stories. As a bonus, we love the humorous tales as well! We are NOT interested in explicit sex. A good way to look at at how we judge what comes our way is that everyone has a story to tell, but does that story hold our attention? We accept unpublished authors as well as published authors. We also accept reprints and simultaneous submissions.

Poetry Content

For poetry, we are looking for very similar genres as our story topics. We deal in the surreal. We do allow bundles of poems to be sent and there is no limit to the number of poems that can be sent within the bundle provided that is stays within the 5,000 word limit.

Article Content

When submitting an article, we are looking for articles pertaining to, and about, the writing process and helpful tips for writers (i.e. writer’s block, selecting topics, grammar, publishing, etc.). We also except articles on topics that will help writers such as:

Poisonous plants of the Old West
Unique sailing ships of ancient Egypt
Tools of the trade for Ghost Hunters.

These types of articles should be couched in terms of how they can be used in ways to help authors.

Book Reviews

When submitting a book review, please be aware that we are looking for our main interests for Synthetic Reality: Science Fiction, Fantasy, SHTF, Slipstream, Horror, Sword and Sorcery and surreal fiction. Books outside this scope will have to be approved by our Editor-in-Chief and are very rare indeed. So please keep that in mind when submitting a book review.

Submission guidelines and portal here.

Writing Competition on Theme of "Reasons": Baltimore Review

Baltimore Review Winter Contest - Theme: "Reasons"

Deadline: November 30, 2021

Baltimore Review Winter Contest – Theme: “Reasons.” We want to understand why. We want reasons. We may not always like the reasons. We may not always understand the reasons. But we still want reasons. Interpret this any way you’d like. We do want to see the word reason or reasons (or explanation or rationale or justification—or some similar word) somewhere in the title or the work.

All entries considered for publication.

$300 prize for each category (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction)

Entry Fee: $8.00

Final judge: Tara Lynn Masih.

Deadline: November 30.

For more details, go here.

Call for Submissions from Indigenous Voices: Jelly Bucket

 
Jelly Bucket seeks Indigenous Voices

Deadline: December 1, 2021

For issue 12's special section, we're looking for poetry, prose, and art from and about Native American cultures and communities, past and present. Jelly Bucket is the print annual of Bluegrass Writer Studio, the low-res MFA program at Eastern Kentucky University. Work from Jelly Bucket has been shortlisted in the Best American anthology series, and we nominate for The Pushcart Prize and PEN America Literary Awards. First-time and emerging authors have appeared alongside Eileen Casey, Ted Cooser, Stuart Dybek, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Sonja Livingston, Frank X. Walker, and Kevin Wilson.

Submit via Submittable by December 1st.

Call for Submissions: Storm Cellar

 

Storm Cellar Call for Submissions

Deadline: Rolling

Storm Cellar, a print-and-ebook journal of safety and danger since 2011, seeks amazing new work for volume 10! Send emotionally, aesthetically, technically, and linguistically ambitious writing, photos, and art. We're especially listening for Indigenous, Black, POC, LGBTQIA+, enby, fat, disabled, neuroatypical, poor, border-straddling, and other marginalized voices. Our roots are in the American Midwest. Surprise us!

Full guidelines here and submission portal here.

Writing Competition: Etched Onyx Magazine and Story Discovery Podcast

Winter Contest Open! Etched Onyx Magazine and Story Discovery Podcast

Deadline: November 26, 2021

We are accepting short stories, poetry, and flash fiction for our Winter Edition Contest with guest judges Chris Clancy and Becky Hinshaw. All works are narrated and include an author interview in our bimonthly Story Discovery Podcast. There is no theme. We welcome all styles, genres, and types of writing as long as the piece is engaging.

The early bird deadline with reduced entry fee of $7.50 is October 8, 2021.

The regular contest fee is $11.

Awards: 1st - $350; 2nd - $150; 3rd - $50; Three Honorable Mentions of $25 each. Enter via submittable.

More info here.

Writing Competition: Carve 2021 Prose and Poetry Contest

Submission Dates: October 1 - November 15, 2021

Prizes: $1000 each for one winner in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Winners announced by February 1, 2022 and published online and in print in Spring 2022. Honorable mentions and semi-finalists will be listed online for up to 6 months.

All work submitted will also be considered for non-contest publication.

Entry Fees: $17 for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

One poem, essay, or short story per entry. No limit to number of entries.

Story, essay, or poem must be previously unpublished (including online).

10,000 maximum word count for fiction and nonfiction; 2,000 maximum for poetry.

We accept entries from anywhere in the world.

No genre works (romance, horror, sci-fi, etc.); literary prose and poetry only.

Winners of the past two Raymond Carver and Prose & Poetry contests are ineligible.

No cover page or author info in document. All identifying information in Submittable is concealed for the contest.

No mailed submissions accepted for this contest.

Submit your entry here.