Open-genre submissions begin April 1st – May 15th
We accept original, unpublished art, poetry, fiction, essays, photography, reviews. Most anything you can print on paper.
$50 flat rate awarded upon acceptance for publication. As well as a complimentary copy (obvs).
Send your packet to:
tablewaremag@gmail.com
This is where we take submissions. No submittable atm. But we are on chillsubs. Up to 15 pages of writing (poetry single-spaced; fiction, etc double-spaced). Up to 5 pieces of art.
Pictura Journal will appear online in April, August, and December. Submissions are always open, and we’ll do our best to respond within three weeks. If you don’t hear back from us within that period, please feel free to follow up.
We offer a token payment of $5 (USD) per contributor, paid to the Paypal (preferred), Cash App, or Venmo account you provide on the submission form. We’ll do our best to find alternate means of payment if necessary, but we can’t make any guarantees. The small payment amount isn’t reflective of the quality of contributor work—it’s just what we can afford with our current funding.
We’re currently reading for our August issue, beginning with work submitted on February 10.
guidelines
The Basics
We encourage simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw any pieces that are accepted elsewhere. Submissions in multiple genres are also accepted.
Do not send us any of the following: work that could reasonably be deemed offensive, including work containing graphic violence, abusive behavior, themes and language expressing hatred for any marginalized identity. We will never knowingly publish AI-generated work.
If you’re uncomfortable with your work appearing in an inclusive publication, we’re not the place for you.
We accept international submissions, but written work must be in English.
Include a brief third-person bio with each submission. Cover letters are welcome but optional. Do not put your name or identifying information anywhere within the file name or the document itself. If we accept your work, please skip an issue before submitting again. If we decline your submission, you may submit different pieces after six months.
We currently accept previously published work with a few conditions: you must have the rights and let us know where it was originally published, and the work can’t have appeared online or in print within the past 24 months. We don’t consider work posted only on personal blogs or social media accounts “previously published.”
Upon acceptance, creators of unpublished work grant Pictura Journal exclusive first serial rights and the right to archive that work online. If your submission has already been published elsewhere, you agree to grant us reprint and archival rights.
All accepted work may be nominated for prizes when possible unless the contributor directs us otherwise.
the specifics
We currently accept submissions through Duosuma. We no longer consider email submissions without prior arrangement.
Poetry
Send up to five poems in one document, with each poem starting on a new page. We prefer free verse, each poem no more than two pages long, and can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to replicate any special visual structure.
Prose
Send one or two pieces of fiction or creative nonfiction, each no longer than 1,500 words. Excerpts of longer works are fine, but they must make sense on their own.
Artwork
Send up to three pieces of visual art, in the highest resolution possible. Artwork currently appears online only.
Expedited Responses
General submissions are always free, but a donation of at least $3 will guarantee a response within three days. You’ll see an option to provide payment on the submission form.
Three-Part Award | A prize of $1,500, publication of the story in The Tusculum Review’s 21st volume (2025), and creation of a limited edition stand-alone chapbook with original art is awarded for the winning story.
To Enter | The entry fee is $20 per manuscript. Entry fees include a one-year subscription to The Tusculum Review (an annual publication) and consideration for publication in our 21st volume (2025). We encourage international submissions but must charge an additional $15 fee to mail the journal to locations outside the U.S.
Deadline | The deadline for submitting is June 15, 2025. All entries should be sent through Submittable: tusculumreview.submittable.com. We do not accept mailed or emailed submissions, but if Submittable is a hardship, let us know at:
review@tusculum.edu
Single Story Length | Each manuscript should consist of a single story in a standard 12-point font, double-spaced. Stories may be between 2,000 words (about 7 manuscript pages) and 7,000 words (22 pages).
Unpublished Entries | Stories may not have been previously published nor be forthcoming. You are welcome to submit your story to other publications or contests while we consider it for the prize, but please alert us if your story is going to be published or honored elsewhere, so we can take it out of the running. If you have more than one story to submit, create a new entry for each.
Anonymous Manuscripts | Please do NOT include your name or any other identifying information on any page of the story manuscript.
Contest Judge | Contest judge Jaime Cortez and editors of the The Tusculum Review will determine the winner of the 2025 prize. Family, friends, and previous students of the contest judge and the The Tusculum Review editors are disqualified from the competition, as are those with reciprocal professional relationships. Previous winners of Tusculum Review contests are also disqualified. Previous finalists and honorable mentions may enter.
Blind Judging | Names and identifying information will not be visible to the judges. The Tusculum Review reserves the right to extend the call for manuscripts or cancel the award. We have only canceled one of the 30+ contests we’ve hosted, due to single-digit entries. We look forward to reading your work.
Publication Rights | Except for second printings of the journal due to demand, all rights to material in The Tusculum Review and chapbooks revert to the individual authors and artists after publication (first serial rights). We request that you acknowledge us if you reprint work we published first. The chapbook design belongs to The Tusculum Review. Tusculum University does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, identity, religion, veteran or military status, citizenship status, ethnic origin, or disability.
Chapbook Launch and Marketing | The debut of the prizewinning chapbook is our most important annual event. When possible, we bring the prizewinner to campus for the live launch, where they read for, and take questions from, an audience of community members and students, many of whom have already read and discussed the writer’s work: the prizewinner is greeted by fans. The visiting writer may be asked to lead a workshop of student fiction earlier in the day. A student editor will interview and write a profile of the winning author for publication on our website in advance of the launch event. We will use photographs of the author, quotes from their story, and blurbs from the contest judge to market the prizewinning chapbook and the event. After filming the live launch, we’ll include portions of the recording on our website. We will submit the prizewinning story for consideration for the Pushcart Prizes, the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and other relevant recognition.
TMR 51 • OUT OF OUR MINDS (the mental health issue) June 2025
Copy deadline May 23, 25th, 2025Query the editors:
no later than May 9; final copy deadline is May 23, 2025.
What are we looking for?
The Markaz Review aka TMR seeks essays, feature articles and reviews of books, film, music, theatre and art, as well as profiles/interviews of artists, filmmakers, musicians and writers (1,000-3,000 words). We’re interested in covering a worldwide array of visual, literary and performing arts events, as well as current affairs. We also publish opinion columns (750-1,500 words). Our style is serious without being academic. Our writers care and are even passionate on the subjects they cover.
Critical and comparative thinking in TMR writing is key. It is essential for all Markaz Review stories that the writer have a strong point of view, a clear voice, a sense of authority about the subject, with a commanding lead paragraph and a strong conclusion. Merely relating biographical details and sharing quotes doesn’t do the trick. Readers want to know from the get-go, why should they be interested in this subject or this person? what’s so special about it/them? The writer has to get at the essence of the subject, and not be satisfied with appearances — just quoting someone, for example, is being satisfied with the surface details, with appearances, but what lies beneath, what is the psychology and/or philosophy of the subject, the experience and its meaning or significance? We want to think more about essences than appearances. We also encourage writers not to only get information from the subject (the “horse’s mouth” as it were) but other sources, including critical assessment. This goes without saying.
Query the Editors (How to Query)
Pitch your story idea to one of the editors with a jab, a roundhouse and an uppercut punch:
1. Tell us in a sentence or two what the story or subject is, and why it’s relevant and needed;
2. Explain why you think it’s a great fit for The Markaz Review;
3. And why you’re the one to write it.
If you haven’t previously written for The Markaz Review, include a sample clip/link or two so we can get a sense of your flare.
That’s all there is to it. A good query will get a faster response! Come on, knock us out! (Editors can be reached via their first name-at-themarkaz.org or query editor@themarkaz.org.)
Book publicists, authors and publishers should address a press release and an electronic ARC of your book to our Deputy Editor, who handles assignments: Rayyan Al-Shawaf, rayyan-at-themarkaz.org. To potentially have your film, art exhibition or other event reviewed, drop us a line at info-at-themarkaz.org and your query will be forwarded to the appropriate editor.
Reviewers: While we are very open to comparative review essays (typically 1,000-3,000 words), we discourage writers from pitching reviews in which they would be writing about books or films by friends. A little objectivity goes a long way, and we prefer critical writing that holds work to high standards.
What do we care about?
TMR is an international platform for creative inquiry, criticism, performance and dialogue that explores the arts, humanities and current affairs. Recognizing that we live in a world fragmented by racism, gender discrimination, settler-colonialism, class and caste systems, xenophobia and orientalism, we raise our voices for social justice and human rights.
No AI Policy
• The Markaz Review has a NO AI POLICY: The Markaz Review is devoted to creative work from human writers and artists only. Text and image generation by AI systems have achieved remarkable verisimilitude to actual writing and art created by human beings. However, we are not open to works that include Artificial Intelligence in the creation of art or texts, whether the generation of whole articles or prompts, titles, names, outlines, dialogue, plot elements, descriptive passages, etc.
• If caught, violators of this policy will be permanently banned from our pages.
• No, running a spellchecker or grammar tool on your finished text is not AI.
When does TMR publish?
Written or audiovisual contributions appear either in TMR Weekly, publishing every Friday, or in our monthly online magazine, a themed issue every first Friday of the month. Submissions range from 750 to 3,000 words.
FILES
All work must be turned in as either a Word file or a Google doc using the Word formatting. Track changes (not email exchanges) remain the gold standard with respect to editing, corrections and final drafts. No exceptions.
Please do not send stories or corrections in the body of your email. After publication, minor corrections are acceptable via email.
If you are sending images, upload all of them to one Google drive folder and share the link to that folder with TMR. Upload a Word doc with captions for your images into that same folder. Please do not send multiple images with multiple emails.
TMR WEEKLY
All op-eds, columns or reviews must be turned in not less than one week prior to the agreed-upon publication date. We publish every Friday, thus your work must be turned in no later than the previous Friday.
TMR MONTHLY
Queries will be accepted up to the 20th of the month preceding the month of publication (always the 15th of each month).
The final polished draft of approved stories will be accepted up to the 20th of the month of publication, unless translation is required, in which case you must add an additional week to 10 days ahead of the deadline on the 5th of the month. Any stories turned in after the 5th of the month of publication will be considered late and may not make it into publication. To avoid confusion, please turn in your work early or on time.
Editing, layout, design and publication prep for each monthly issue must be completed no later than the 20th of the month. This allows TMR time to prepare PR and marketing of the issue, prepping social media posts and other outreach.
Contributor Honoraria
The Markaz Review (TMR) is a non-profit publication. TMR pays all contributors an honorarium within 30 days of publication.
Submissions are open for issue 12 from 15 April - 15 June 2025.
What we ask:
Share your poetry - be it a roar, purr, or pip-squeak.
Broadly, we seek poems in which we feel a warm-blooded liveliness - beating hearts, teeth and claws or rough-tongued tenderness. To get a sense of the range of work we’ve adored before, browse our previous issues online.
This said, we believe that you should pursue the writing that most energises you, rather than tailoring your voice to journals. We are always pleasantly surprised by new modes of enchantment arriving in our inbox. Send us the work you’d be most chuffed to see in the world.
Email us up to five unpublished poems to:
We prefer to read submissions as attachments in a Word document (or else a Google Doc or PDF). Please include an author bio in your cover note (if you’re new to sharing work you can see the bios of our authors beneath their poems on the website).
We appreciate knowing we’re you’re from, within Aotearoa or abroad. We are centered in Aotearoa New Zealand, but do welcome work from overseas. It’s important for us to be in conversation across oceans as well as within these antipodean islands.
Simultaneous submissions are permitted. Do let us know as soon as you can if you need to withdraw work due to acceptance elsewhere.
As a rule the use of AI is not permitted. We wish to see words summoned from real human hearts, and bear a fundamental distrust of the environmental destructiveness and spiritual atrophy of the plagiarism machines. If you have work that explicitly and cleverly subverts the affordances of AI tools, and discloses the use of these, we may consider it - but it’ll need to be exceptionally exquisite and thoughtfully conceived work.
Sweet Mammalian loves to hear from new writers and old hands - we welcome the emerging, the submerging, the splurging. Send us your thrilling work and spread the word far and wide.
Payment: Small honorarium.
ANNUAL LITERARY CONTEST
Ends on Sun, Jun 1, 2025 10:00 PM
$1,000 Fiction Prize, judge: Helen Elaine Lee
$500 Michael Steinberg Nonfiction Prize, judge: J. D. Scrimgeour
$500 Graphic Lit Prize, judge: Bhanu Pratap
$500 Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, judge: Sandra Lim
Winners, finalists, and Editors' Choice in each genre will be published in our Summer Awards Issue due out in August. All winners, finalists, and editors' choice will be cited in future advertisements and announcements.
FEE: $18.00/entry
GUIDELINES
We are open--send us great work!
All accepted authors are paid, and all non-contest submissions will be considered for our $200 Staff Choice Award: an accepted submission chosen by our staff as best embodying two things we love and respect about writing: stylistic ambition and social engagement. One author each issue will receive this award, announced with the issue's release (usually in May).
As always: we hope to read your very best, we're excited to read it, and we want more, we hope for more, we quietly plead for/demand more. Simply: we love great literature, especially literature that is urgent and/or strange, and we love all voices, be they new, emerging, or established - certainly those from underrepresented groups. We always put samples from past issues on our homepage if you'd like to get a sense of our sensibilities.
Note: Submissions are being read for our spring 2026 issue. They must be previously unpublished, and simultaneous submissions are totally fine (but please withdraw accepted pieces immediately; the lack of this practice has increased far too much for us lately).
Note 2.0: We generally charge a two dollar fee so that we can do something we hope all agree is a good thing: pay all our authors, at least $40 per writer; usually we have free submissions in early Dec and May ... and during most of June and July, we're happy to provide free submissions to any authors who self-identify as being from underrepresented or minoritized communities or simply can't afford the $2 fee. Just email our editor at:
sbernard (at) laverne (dot) edu (Change (at) to @ and (dot) to . )
for more information.
-->Excepting the student contest, current students and employees of the University of La Verne are not eligible to submit. Sorry!
Note 3.0: We are not Prism International, a fantastic journal in Canada.
Happy submitting, and feel free to visit/like our Facebook page!
Submit your work here.
