American Religion Journal

American religion publishes innovative scholarship, reviews, and creative work that engages with the categories of "religion" and "America" (as well as their intersections) in provocative ways. We believe that the most exciting explorations of American religion operate in defiance of exceptionalist narratives and Whiggish historical paradigms, emphasize critical approaches to the study of religion in the United States and the Americas that are conversant with hemispheric and transnational approaches, work with a variety of disciplines and archives in and around (but not limited to) the humanities and social sciences, and strive to reframe American religious studies.

Our Duosuma submissions portal is dedicated to receiving submissions traditionally identified as "creative"--i.e., poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, and varieties of visual arts (see specific calls if applicable). We are interested in works that reveal, illuminate, and engage American spiritual and religious cultures, broadly conceived. While we are not interested in devotional art that would be intelligible only to a narrow group of religious insiders, we would welcome work from religiously-committed artists that demonstrates a broad historical-cultural consciousness regarding the religion(s) in question--work that illuminates traditions, practices, and beliefs and practices in light of that consciousness, with an eye toward a broad audience.

While we recognize and hope to problematize the neat partitioning of explorations of American religion into such dichotomies as "scholarly vs. non-scholarly," or "creative vs. research-oriented," we do recognize that different types of work require different editorial care. If you have created work ("academic" or otherwise) that you feel might not neatly fit into the above-mentioned "creative" genres, please explore our many online and in-print projects at https://www.american-religion.org/home/journal and follow the instructions to submit your work to the appropriate editors.

Creative Arts Temp Closed

American Religion is looking for works that reveal, illuminate, and engage American spiritual and religious cultures, broadly conceived. Our Duosuma submissions portal is dedicated to receiving pieces traditionally identified as "creative"--i.e., poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. If you are interested in submitting work that falls into more journalistic or scholarly categories, please follow this link.

Guidelines:

--We will accept creative submissions exclusively through Duosuma from March 17, 2026 to May 15, 2026.

--Please submit 2-5 poems (in one document), one essay, or one work of short fiction. Do not submit more than one piece or collection of poems per submission period.

--Please paginate your submission. For prose, double-space your submission.

--We have no maximum word count, but because we are working with limited space, it may be more difficult for longer works to make the cut (e.g., poems with multiple pages/sections or essays/stories exceeding 6,000 words). Excerpts of longer works are acceptable provided that can be read as stand-alone pieces.

--Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please notify us if your submission is accepted, in part or as a whole, for publication elsewhere.

--While American Religion is not interested in devotional art that would be intelligible only to a narrow group of religious insiders, we would welcome work from religiously-committed artists that demonstrates a broad historical-cultural consciousness regarding the religion(s) in question--work that illuminates traditions and practices in light of that consciousness, with an eye toward a broad audience. We encourage submissions from artists of all identities, living anywhere, published or unpublished, but we only consider work written or translated into English.

--We will not consider work that has been published in English in a book, magazine, literary publication, or newspaper. We also will not accept work that has been published/posted on a website, app, social media feed, or a publicly accessible online community.

Process:

--All submissions are considered for both print and online publication.

--All submissions are read by the creative arts editorial team, and in some cases reviewed by other editors at American Religion. We will try our best to respond to submissions within two months of the concluding date of the submissions window.

--It is possible that the creative arts editors recommend a piece for another section in the journal--in print or online. If so, we will query the artist regarding their interest in migrating their work to the relevant section.

--If a submission is accepted for publication, the author grants and assigns the press the rights to publish the said submission for the life of the journal. At the same time, authors of creative works enter into non-exclusive contracts with us; authors maintain control of the copyright of their material, should they elect to publish it in their own collections, monographs, etc.

We look forward to reading your work!

Not Open