Call for Submissions from Canadian Writers: Geist

Geist is a Canadian magazine of ideas and culture with a strong literary focus and a sense of humour. The Geist tone is intelligent, plain-talking, inclusive and offbeat. Each print issue represents a convergence of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, photography, comics, reviews, little-known facts of interest, cartography and the legendary Geist crossword puzzle. ‍

Our priority is to publish work from emerging and established writers and artists who are Canadian or permanent residents of Canada, who live in or outside the country. Occasionally, we publish international contributors whose work has a strong connection to Canada or would be relevant to a Canadian audience.

We encourage submissions from Black writers, Indigenous writers, writers of colour, writers with disabilities, LGBTQIA2S+ writers, and writers from other intersectional and marginalized groups.

All submissions must be *original and previously unpublished* (with the exception of our Findings section). Previously unpublished means the work does not appear in any other print or online publication, journal, blog, personal website, social media or otherwise. Geist is not interested in submissions that have been generated or developed with the use of AI, and we do not consider these to be original work. ‍

‍Geist purchases first North American Serial Rights and non-exclusive electronic rights. Copyright reverts to the author after publication. We may also use part of the work for promotional purposes for the issue.

All accepted work receives close, collaborative editorial attention. We value your voice and aim to support each piece toward its fullest expression. We promote contributor work widely and enthusiastically.

Please read the full submission guidelines before sending us your work. We accept submissions via Submittable.

‍WHAT TO SUBMIT

Before submitting work, read several issues of Geist, or dig into the archives at geist.com, to get a sense of the work we publish.

Geist is always seeking short non-fiction (under 2000 words), typically personal narrative, for the Notes & Dispatches section. Pay is commensurate with length, usually $300-500.

We are especially interested in writing grounded in a sense of place, historical narrative, personal essays on art, music and culture, profiles of ordinary people with extraordinary stories, and fascinating fields of work, practices or hobbies. Read examples here, here and here.

Longform essays (up to 5000 words) are published as Features. We pay up to $1000.

We welcome innovative, thoughtfully researched and emotionally resonant narrative non-fiction in all its forms. Send us your braided essays, hermit crab pieces, lyric essays and collage works. We're drawn to writing that uses form with intention—essays that borrow the shape of lists, letters, instructions, or other unconventional structures—and that matches creativity with intellectual rigour and curiosity. Examples here and here.

Comics: We’re interested in comics that are weird, funny, unexpected or experimental. We pay $120 per page. We publish shorter comics in the Notes & Dispatches section (example here) and publish longer comics as Features (example here), max. 8 pages. Please send up to three strips or one longer comic at a time.

Fiction: We publish short stories (up to 5000 words) in the Features section. We usually publish one story per issue, so please send only your best work. We pay up to $1000. Check out our recent short fiction.

Poetry: Send a maximum of 5 poems. We publish between one to three poems per issue, in the Notes & Dispatches section and occasionally in Features. We pay $100 per page.

Hybrid forms: We like work that crosses genres or that surprises us in other ways. Send us your microfiction, photography essays, maps and poetry comics! Your interdisciplinary forms and your visual-textual mashups!

Findings: We reprint excerpts from published work and works-in-progress in the Findings section, along with documents and interesting items found online, or anywhere in the real world. We appreciate suggestions from writers, artists and publishers. Please email:

geist@geist.com

For our Findings section, we buy second or third serial rights for previously published work (including work published on the internet). Due to the volume of suggestions we receive, you may not hear back from us. Thanks for your understanding.

Art & Photography: We love collages, photography, mixed-media, cartography and art that surprises. Traditional and digital forms are welcome. We pay between $50 and $120. Please note that the majority of our artwork is to accompany written work in the magazine. Artwork is usually kept on file until it can be matched with a written piece, and we may keep art submissions on file for up to one year. Work submitted to the Art & Photography category that does not follow the guidelines will not be considered.

HOW TO SUBMIT

We put out Calls for Submissions three times per year (once for each issue). Calls are announced on our social media and website, so please check back regularly.

We accept submissions via Submittable and by mail, though Submittable is preferred and mailed submissions will take longer. Please send only one submission at a time, and wait to hear back from us before submitting again.

Deadline: Nov. 14, 2025

Call for Submissions from Teen Writers: Blue Marble Review

 

Submissions

Thanks for your interest in Blue Marble Review. We welcome submissions from students ages 13-22. Please take a look at our submission guidelines before you submit. Please use a personal, or parent email (or gmail) but not a school email. School email filters will often block our responses. We look forward to reading your work.

What to Send:

Blue Marble Review is published four times a year and accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, essays, opinion pieces, travel writing, photography and art on a rolling basis. We are looking for new work that hasn’t been published anywhere else either online or in print.

Fiction:

Send us your stories! Flash, short stories, hybrid forms—all in 1500 words or less. A maximum of three pieces per submission.

Non-Fiction:

We accept memoir, personal essays, travel adventures, and have been known to publish the occasional research paper and book review. One to two pieces per submission please.(1500 word limit)

Poetry:

Up to three poems per submission.

Art:

Four pieces of artwork (scanned, jpeg format) or four photographs per submission.

Payment:

Contributors published online in Blue Marble Review will receive $30 per published piece, $75 for cover art.

When you submit to Blue Marble Review you are allowing us First Serial Rights as well as the right to archive your work on our site. Copyrights of all work published in Blue Marble Review remain with the author.

Submit your work here. 

Writing Competition: Jesmyn Ward Prize

 

The Jesmyn Ward Prize will be awarded annually by the Michigan Quarterly Review to one short story submitted for consideration. The Michigan Quarterly Review has established this prize in honor of Helen Zell Writers’ Program Alumna Jesmyn Ward and her significant contributions to the literary arts.

Submissions to the Jesmyn Ward Prize include a one-year digital subscription for four issues of MQR beginning with the Winter 2026 issue.

Please submit one unpublished short story of 1,500-7,000 words. Simultaneous submissions are welcome but please withdraw your submission as soon as it is accepted elsewhere.

We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable, its title, or its file name.

First readers for the prize will be the Helen Zell Writers’ Program students who currently review submissions on behalf of the journal.

Submissions will go through two rounds of consideration by graduate students before 10 finalists are passed on to the judge.

Current faculty and students and recent graduates (in the past 3 years) of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program are barred from submitting. Close friends, relatives, and current and former students (in the past 3 years) of the Judge are barred from submitting. MQR’s staff and editorial board, as well as their immediate family members, are also excluded from the contest.

The 2025 Judge is Kevin Wilson. The winning story will be published in the Summer 2026 issue of MQR.

The prize will be in the amount of $2,000 and publication. All submissions will be considered for publication in MQR.

Entry Fee: $25.00

Deadline: Nov. 30, 2025

Submit your entry here. 

Writing Competition: Quill Prose Award

Queer literature is often found in the side stacks, in the back of the bookstore, under “Gay and Lesbian.” These authors are put into a genre that barely fits them, excluded from mainstream funding, and alienated by submission questionnaires and prying questions about identity and the underlying, “What are you?” The contradiction is that though labels can be alienating, they can also be empowering and community building. Red Hen Press seeks to work against the negative politics of labeling while honoring and empowering authors who identify as queer.

Award details

$1,000
Book publication by Red Hen Press
Judge: Andrew Lam
Submissions Open: June 1, 2025
Submissions Close: November 30, 2025

Note: Entry Fee is $10. 

Name on cover sheet only; 25,000-word minimum (approximately 150 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12pt font); prose (fiction or nonfiction) by a queer writer only.

Submissions are currently open for this award.

Guidelines

The award is open to all writers with the following exceptions:

• Authors who have had a full-length work published by Red Hen Press, or a full-length work currently under consideration by Red Hen Press

• Employees, interns, or contractors of Red Hen Press

• Relatives of employees or members of the executive board of directors

• Relatives or individuals having a personal or professional relationship with any of the final judges where they have taken any part whatsoever in shaping the manuscript, or where, for whatever reason, selecting a particular manuscript might have the appearance of impropriety

Procedures and Ethical Considerations

To be certain that every manuscript finalist receives the fairest evaluation, all manuscripts shall be submitted to the judges without any identifying material.

Bios, acknowledgments, and other identifying material shall be removed from judged manuscripts until the conclusion of the competition.

Red Hen Press is committed to maintaining the utmost integrity of our awards. Judges shall recuse themselves from considering any manuscript where they recognize the work. In the event of refusal, a manuscript score previously assigned by the managing editor of the press will be substituted.

Submit your entry here.

Call for Submissions: Barbara

Barbara 

What Are We Looking For?

We are interested in publishing short poems of 14 lines or fewer. All kinds of poetry are welcome, from haiku to experimental freeform. We may also consider very short prose (fiction or non-fiction) of no more than 100 words.

We are particularly interested in, though not limited to, publishing those who consider themselves outsiders—whether in poetry or the wider world; the voices who usually go unheard. We enjoy poetry that is a little different, a little wild. Make us stop and think. Let us be surprised and delighted.

We do not publish:

Graphic violence or body horror

Work that is racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise harmful

Anything generated, in whole or in part, by artificial intelligence (AI)

We welcome simultaneous submissions and poems previously published on personal blogs and social media, and submissions will always be free.

You can include up to four poems or prose pieces per submission.

How to Submit

Please send your submission to:

submissions@barbara.pub

Include in the body of your email (no attachments):

Your poem(s) or prose piece(s)
Your name
The name you want to be published under (if different)
Your website and/or social media handle (optional)

What Happens Next?

If accepted, your poem will be published in barbara, along with your chosen credit (name and website/socials), and you will be credited on our website. You will receive a complimentary digital copy of barbara, which we encourage you to print, copy and distribute freely and widely in paper form.

We may choose to include your poem in a future edition of our anthology, spine. If your work appears in spine, you’ll receive a complimentary digital copy and the option to purchase print copies at cost price (the cost of printing and shipping). If you do not wish to be considered for spine, please let us know in your submission.

Rights and Copyright

By submitting, you confirm that:

The work is your own creation
You are the sole copyright holder and have the right to grant us permission to publish it
It has not been generated, wholly or partly, by AI tools or software
It does not infringe on any third-party rights

You retain full copyright of your work. You grant barbara the non-exclusive right to publish your work in print and digital formats, including one broadside and one future anthology (spine).

If your work is later published elsewhere, please credit barbara as the first place of publication. One of our goals is to get the names of our authors out there in the world, and your poems read widely. Let’s support each other in delighting the world with our wild words.

Payment

barbara is just the two of us and our African milk tree, in our living room, with our typewriters. It is not a profitable adventure, and as such, we are unable to offer monetary payment.

Flash Fiction Publication

 I'm very pleased to share the publication of my flash fiction, "Time," in the anthology, Buyers' Remorse (San Fedele Press). 

 

Writing Competition: Fish Poetry Prize

 

Judge: Billy Collins

Word Limit: 60 lines

Closes: 31 March ‘26 

Results: 15 May '26

Anthology Published: July 2026 

Entry Fees: €16 / €11 subsequent entries. (Optional Critique €45) 

Prizes:

• Top 10 poems will be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2026.

• 1st prize: €1,000

• 2nd: Fish Writing Course + €300.

• 3rd: €300

Rules: Poetry Prize 

• No entry form is needed.

• Entry is online, or by post if required.

• You may enter as many times as you wish.

• The poetry competition is open to poets of any nationality writing in English.

• There is no restriction on theme or style.

• Poem length is restricted to 60 lines. The title is not included in the word limit.

• The winning poems must be available for the Fish Anthology and, therefore, must not have been published previously.

• Fish holds publishing rights for work published in the Fish Anthology for one year after publication, after which rights revert to the author. (Please acknowledge Fish in any subsequent publications.)

• Notification of receipt of entry will normally be by email.

• The judges’ verdict is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

• Poems cannot be altered or substituted once they have been entered.

• Judging is anonymous. Name and contact details must not appear on the poem, (in the box provided if entering online, on separate sheet if entering by post).

• In order to give opportunities to emerging writers: (a) Writers who have had two poems published in Fish Anthologies may not enter for three years after their second publication. They may enter other Fish competitions. (b) Previous first prize winners may enter again, but will not be eligible for the first prize.

• Entry fees will not be returned if poems are withdrawn after entering.

• Entry is taken to be acceptance of these rules.

Fees: Poetry Prize

The cost of an Online entry is fixed in Euro and the conversion into your local currency will be done automatically by your credit card company according to the current exchange rate.

Enter here.