Call for Submissions from Canadian Writers: Yolk

 

Yolk is a Montreal-based literary journal that publishes fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and visual arts in our print (Canadian citizens and residents of Canada) and digital (Canadian + international) publications. Our mandate is to publish fine work by established and emerging artists. We encourage submissions from all artists and writers, including those from marginalized communities and those generally under-represented in literature, in particular Indigenous writers, writers of colour, LGBTQ+ writers, and writers with disabilities.

Yolk is currently accepting submissions for our upcoming Fall print issue, Vol. 5.1, from July 1st–⁠July 31st.

Our annual submission windows is as follows:

Spring Print: January 1st–⁠January 31st

Digital: February 1st–⁠May 31st

The Montreal Fiction Prize: May 15th–⁠June 15th

Fall Print: July 1st–⁠July 31st

Digital: August 1st–⁠⁠November 30th

We do no accept submissions of any kind during December and June (except for The Montreal Fiction Prize in June).

Payment: Yolk believes in paying artists. We offer a $100CAD honorarium for our digital publication. For print, we offer $30 per page up to a maximum of $200. We also pay $200 for our cover art. Prizes are handled separately. All contributors whose work has been selected for publication in our print issues will also receive a free copy of the journal.

There is a nominal $3 submission fee. Yolk is a registered NPO and these charges will go towards sustaining operating costs. We will always have a free submission option available for those for whom the submission fee is preventative. In recognizing the additional cultural and socioeconomic barriers Indigenous people overcome, we are waiving submission fees for submissions by Indigenous people for print and digital publication (see "INCLUSIVE ACCESS" in Submittable).

Copyright: Yolk does not accept work that has been previously published in print or online (we also will not consider work that has previously appeared on social media or on personal blogs). Yolk acquires First Serial Rights and the right to archive your work on our website, though copyright reverts to the author upon publication.

We submit work published in our journal to the National Magazine Awards, the Best Canadian Anthology series, the Best American Anthology series, Best of the Net, and for Pushcart prizes.

We are now exclusively accepting submissions through Submittable. You will find the rest of our general and genre-specfic guidelines in Submittable.

For all other general inquiries, please contact us at:

themail@yolkliterary.ca

Call for Submissions: Solarpunk Magazine

 

Solarpunk is a bimonthly online publication of radically hopeful and optimistic science fiction and fantasy.

Submissions open: July 1-14

The Basics:

If your work is accepted, please wait two full submission windows before submitting again. For example, if a story you receive word in April that your story is accepted, please do not submit during the May and July open windows, but feel free to do so once the September window opens.

Simultaneous submissions: Yes, but please let us know immediately if your submission gets accepted elsewhere before you hear from us.

Unsolicited reprints: No

Translations: Yes

Multiple Submissions: No, not within each category. But you can enter one submission per category per submission period. For example, you can submit one short story, poetry, and a nonfiction article all in the same submission window using each individual submission portal.

Policy on Artificial Intelligence

We recognize that there is a lot of positive potential for human societies in the development and use of technologies such as artificial intelligence. We also recognize that there is a lot of justifiable concern over generative AI, data scraping, plagiarizing human created art and literary works, and the potential for AI to displace human artists and authors from their jobs as a means of further enriching oligarchs and techbros.

Solarpunk Magazine is and will remain a venue for human authors and artists to showcase their work. As a result, we’ve implemented a strict policy:

1. We do not accept any work created or altered by generative artificial intelligence programs such as, but not limited to Midjourney, Dall-E, Grok, and ChatGPT.
2. We do not use any generative AI tools in the course of our editorial work.

For a more in depth explanation of the reasoning behind this policy, please click here.

Word Counts & Pay Rates:

Solarpunk Magazine pays professional market rates for fiction as defined by SFWA. Dollar amounts reflect the United States dollar (USD).
Our rates are as follows:

Fiction: 1500-7500 words ($.08 per word, $100 minimum)
Poetry: One poem of up to three pages ($40 per poem)
Nonfiction: 1000-2000 words ($75 per essay or article)
Cover Art: $100 for reprints, $200 for original unpublished
Interior Art: $50 for reprints, $100 for original unpublished

If your submission is accepted, a copy of our publishing contract will be emailed to you to read, sign, and return.

More information and submission portal here. 

Call for Submissions: Aesterion Press

aesterion is currently open for submissions.

aesterion publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, and international literature in translation. Excerpts from forthcoming publications will also be considered. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. Please let us know if your submission is accepted elsewhere immediately.

We only accept previously unpublished writing in English. If your piece is accepted, we ask for first time electronic publication rights in the case of our digital site publication and first time printed publication rights in the case of our printed division publication.

We will respond to all submissions and pitches as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, we are unable to pay for writing at this time. We are a small all-volunteer team and hope to explore payment options and fundraising in the future as we grow.

GENRES

Fiction

Please send up to two short stories of up to 7,000 words if submitting to our digital edition quarterly, or a full length manuscript if submitting for printed publication. We welcome all genres and experimental styles, flash fiction included. We are especially eager to read stories that play with convention and form.

Nonfiction

Please send up to two essays of up to 4,000 words if submitting to our digital edition quarterly, or a full length manuscript if submitting for printed publication. We publish all forms of creative nonfiction, from personal essays to philosophical thought. We do not publish general commentary of current topics.

Poetry

Please send three to five poems in a single document if submitting to our digital edition quarterly, or a full length manuscript if submitting for printed publication. Poems should be formatted as the author wishes them to be published. All forms are accepted.

Visual Art

Please send five to ten pieces in a single document for submitting to our digital edition quarterly. All forms are accepted.

Translations

We accept English translations of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from all around the world. Please send one work of up to 5,000 words or three to five poems in a single document, not exceeding ten pages if submitting to our digital edition quarterly, or a full length manuscript if submitting for printed publication.

All Submissions

Submissions should be accompanied by a short biography of the author no longer than 150 words. You may include a translator’s note of up to 300 words providing context for the work and its translation. It is the translator’s responsibility to obtain permission to publish from the copyright holder of the original text.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Please read all the information on this page before submitting your work. Send your text in a .docx or .doc file, attached to your email, to:

aesterionlit@gmail.com (No PDFs or other formats.) 

Your file name should be formatted as “CATEGORY_NAME_TITLE.” The subject line of your email should be formatted as “Submission: Title, Name, Category.” You may submit a short bio. Otherwise, please keep your email as short as possible. Below is a sample email:

SUBJECT LINE:

Submission: “Title,” Author, Fiction

BODY TEXT:

Dear aesterion,

Please find my fiction submission, “Title,” attached for your consideration. Brief overview of the text.

Writer bio

Call for Submissions: After Dinner Conversation

Your story must spur discussions. It must require the reader to expand their mind and involve ethical questions.

Rule of Thumb: If you know the right answer, but don't do it because you lack courage, that's probably a HARD CHOICE. If you don't actually even know what the right answer is, that's an ETHICAL CHOICE (and what we publish). Ethical Question Quiz

 Our editor has made this video, explaining what we are looking for. In short, your writing can be any genre and from any perspective, as long as it stimulates ethical and philosophical discussions.

If you need an example, read “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by the amazing Ursula K. Le Guin. Another way to think of it is this, we are looking for The Trolley Problem in short story form. A great example of something we have published is “The Waiting Room.” “As You Wish” is a good example of the type of children’s story we publish.

If you think more in movies, think Ex Machina, Her, Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Looper. For TV, think The Good Place, Westworld, and Star Trek: TNG.

Better yet, listen to our podcast!

The point is, we don’t care if it’s sci-fi, fantasy, romance, contemporary women’s fiction, historical fiction, western, or whatever, but the short story should have a deeper point for a longer discussion. 90% of what we turn down is not because of the quality of the writing, but because it’s simply not the kind of thing we publish.

If you just want the hard stats, our acceptance rate is around 3%, and stories in the 2500-4000-word range seem to do better with our readers.

We do not accept novels, poems, or artwork.

Are there ethical question stories you are not looking for?

There are a few common topic submissions. We aren’t saying we won’t accept more (we will), but they would have to have a special twist. All things being equal, we are more apt to take a new idea over a “yet another…” idea we have seen before. Submissions we see weekly include:

Going back in time to warn or change the past, or yourself.

Harvesting body parts from animals, clones, the poor/etc to save others.

Anything related to having the right to commit suicide.

Erasing people’s memory in any way related to crime, or your own memory, to minimize the past trauma.

A straight trolley car problem, just in a different setting.

Medical decisions/treatments/testing that hurts some, but helps others.

A car driven by AI that has to decide what to do.

Straight Utilitarianism decisions.

Ethical cannibalism.

What length are you looking for?

• Children’s Stories: under 1,500 words

• Young Adult: under 3,500 words

• Adult: 1,500-7,000** words

More information and submission portal here. 

Accepted short stories from unsolicited submissions pay $75. 

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Obsession": Brink Literary Journal

Brink Literary Journal 

Through Submittable, we accept a variety of hybrid work from work that resists categories, Nonfiction to Fiction, from Poetry to Translation.

We are interested in writing that presses boundaries by using more than one medium to tell a story; work that looks and feels different on the page. Additionally, we look for submissions that engage the issue's theme and the notion of being on the brink.

Please submit only unpublished pieces and notify us if your simultaneous submission is accepted elsewhere.

Open submissions to Brink Literary Journal are free.

Deadline: July 31, 2025 

 Payment for each contributor is one copy of the issue in which their work appears as well as:

$25  ||  Poem (per poem)
$50  ||  Work (less than 1500 words)
$50  ||  Art (1-3 Images)
$100  ||  Art (4+ Images)
$100  ||  Work (more than 1501 words)

Call for Poetry Submissions from Women Over 50: Gyroscope Review

Our Fall 2025 Issue is the annual Crone Power Issue. Submissions will be limited to poets over the age of 50 who identify as female. For this special issue, we seek work that examines what it means to be a woman over 50. This issue only accepts submissions from female-identifying poets over the age of fifty (50). Send us your best poems, the ones you are dying to show the world. Let everyone know what you are thinking, from nature to politics to relationships. You have valuable insights, and we want to share them.

Deadline: September 1, 2025 

IF YOU ARE NOT A WOMAN-IDENTIFYING POET OVER 50, PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT AT THIS TIME. Regular submissions from all poets will resume for our Winter 2026 issue starting October 1, 2025. All submissions to Gyroscope Review must be made via our submissions manager, Submittable. We do not accept submissions via post or email.

No more than four poems from any one author per reading period will be considered. If there are 5 or more poems in a document, the fifth (sixth, seventh) poem will not be considered.

There are no length restrictions on individual poems. Formats we accept: .rtf, .doc, .docx. Do not add any headers, footers, or page numbers. Stick to standard fonts like Times New Roman. Use tabs instead of the space bar to offset lines if possible. Put up to four poems in one document; please make sure each poem is on a separate page and use page breaks in between poems.

We do not accept previously published material at this time. This includes publication in print, and Facebook, poetry sites, and personal blogs. Translations must be the author's own work and contain English and foreign language versions. Please do not submit if you are not open to being edited. We work with you on edits. No racist, or any other -ist, derogatory, or pornographic material. This is determined by the judgment of the editors. By all means, push the envelope, but do so in a tasteful manner. By submitting, you attest that the work is your own and has not been generated in part or whole by AI. We are not ready for our robot overlords' attempts at poetry. Anonymous submissions are not allowed; pen names are acceptable.

If your work is accepted for publication, we ask only for the first North American serial rights, in both digital and print formats. Gyroscope Review retains the right to use the accepted work in future anthologies as well as in the online archives. All rights revert to the author after publication by Gyroscope Review. All accepted work will be archived on the website in a PDF. Please include a bio written in third person of up to 100 words. Bios longer than this will be edited down to 100 words at the editor's discretion.

Gyroscope Review is open to poetry in all genres, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror. We publish quarterly. Note – Gyroscope Review is not a paying market at this time. We do not provide contributors printed copies, but free online PDF issues are always available on our website. Paperbacks and Kindle eBooks are available for purchase through Amazon, as well as anthologies. Past issues can also be found on Biblio.

Submit your work here. 

Thank you!

During the month of June, this little blog had over 115,000 hits! Thank you, thank you. I so appreciate your readership and continued support.

And there is a new feature some may not have noticed. If I can confirm the status, I am including #online and/or #print to indicate whether the market is published online only, in print only, or both. I don't always know and can't always find out from their websites, but I will do my best.

Thank you again.