Dear Fear

Submission window: August 1, 2026–October 15, 2026

Dear Fear is a collection of inspiring messages from people in eating disorder recovery. We welcome emerging writers and artists, and we particularly encourage submissions from communities that have historically faced resistance to representation, including LGBT+, BIPOC, and disabled communities. Please review our website for a discussion of fear foods and examples of epistolary works.

We also recognize the relative lack of literature by men about eating disorders and recovery. We hope Dear Fear can help correct that imbalance by making space for their voices.

We welcome submissions from writers and artists at all stages of their careers.

We welcome:

Creative Writing — Prose: One essay, story, or other work of prose under 2,000 words.
Creative Writing — Poetry: One to three poems, with a maximum of 45 lines per poem.
Visual Art and Hybrid Work: Up to five images.
Series and unified works: If you are submitting a series, triptych, poetry cycle, or other unified grouping, please tell us in your cover letter.

We are unable to accept hybrid works involving video, music, or other streaming content at this time.

We cannot accept material generated by artificial intelligence.

How to Submit

Please submit the following:

1. A cover letter
Your cover letter should include:

The title(s) of the work you are submitting
What type of work you are submitting (prose, poetry, visual art, or hybrid work)
A short author or artist bio written in the third person

2. Your work as a Word document
Please use a readable 12-point font such as Times New Roman or Garamond. For prose, please double-space your work unless alternative spacing is necessary as part of an experiment with form.

3. Images, if you are submitting visual or hybrid work
Please submit JPG/JPEG files that meet the following specifications:

1,200 pixels on the longest side
sRGB color space
JPG/JPEG format only
File naming: FirstName_LastName_1.jpg, FirstName_LastName_2.jpg, etc.

A Note About Access

We will make accommodations for submissions from justice-involved or unhoused writers and artists, as well as people submitting on their behalf.

If you need an accommodation or have questions about submitting, please use the contact form on this website or email the editors at [email protected].

Submission Fee

The submission fee is $3. We will waive this fee upon request.

We also offer optional editorial feedback from our editors:

Poetry editor Danielle Coffyn
Nonfiction editor Maggie Russell
Visual editor Roula Seikaly

The editorial feedback fee is $30.

All submission and editorial feedback fees are used to help pay our contributors.

Payment

Thanks to the supporters of Dear Fear, we will offer a modest honorarium for accepted work.

Before You Submit

Simultaneous Submissions

We welcome simultaneous submissions. Because of the time involved in reviewing work, however, we ask that you notify us promptly if your work is accepted elsewhere and withdraw it through Duotrope's system.

Previously Published Work

We cannot accept previously published work. By “published,” we mean work for which another organization or individual has established rights. We do not consider work published on a platform you control—such as a personal blog, newsletter, or social media account—to be previously published for purposes of this call. If we accept your submission, we will ask you to remove copies of the work from platforms you control.

Response Time

We aim to respond to submissions within three months.

Questions?

Please direct all queries and correspondence to the editors: [email protected]

Thank you for your interest in Dear Fear. If you'd like to support the anthology and the costs of our work, please consider contributing to our tip jar.

— The Editors

Quick Links to Open Calls:

Dear Fear Letter to Fear Foods - Nonfiction Entry (closing in 32 days) Fee: usd $3.00
Dear Fear Letters to Fear Foods - Hybrid Entry (closing in 32 days) Fee: usd $3.00
Dear Fear Letters to Fear Foods - Poetry Entry (closing in 32 days) Fee: usd $3.00
Submission with Editorial Review (closing in 32 days) Fee: usd $30.00

Submission with Editorial Review Fee: usd $30.00 Open

Closes on Thursday, October 15, 2026 11:59 PM PDT (in 32 days).

In an effort to reduce submission fees while also increase the payment to our contributors, we have opted to offer a submission with editorial (or portfolio) review option. We have seen this process work beautifully for literary magazines and acknowledge their leadership in this area.

All fees collected from this editorial review option will go directly to our publication's payment of the writers included in the anthology.

Editorial review is intended for writers and artists seeking developmental level insight into their work. It is not a copyediting or line-editing service. Instead, an editorial review focuses on the construction, pacing, and organization of a piece. It looks for gaps, inconsistencies, or places where readers are pulled out of the experience of a piece.

An editorial review includes a two to three page letter summarizing what the editors of Dear Fear discovered in reading or experiencing your piece. It incudes references to craft as well as provides references to published pieces by other writers that exemplify the elements the editors have found need strengthening.

This option does not promise acceptance of your piece. However, opting for editorial review early in the submission window will allow for resubmission (with fees waved) of your piece. This may give writers who are experimenting with new voices, approaches, or elements in their work both insight into how those elements are working as well as greater likelihood of having their piece accepted on resubmission.

To give our submitters the greatest chance of resubmission, we prioritize submissions in this category.

Please review our submission guidelines above for your category before submitting.

Submit

Dear Fear Letters to Fear Foods - Poetry Entry Fee: usd $3.00 Open

Closes on Thursday, October 15, 2026 11:59 PM CDT (in 32 days).

Please send one to three poems with a maximum of 45 lines.

If you are submitting a series, triptych, or poetry cycle, or other unified grouping of work, please indicate that information in your cover letter.

Please use the hybrid option if your work includes graphic or visual elements.

Please submit your work as a Word or PDF document.

Please use a readable font (Times New Roman, Garamond, etc.) in 12-point.

We cannot accept any material generated by artificial intelligence.

We welcome simultaneous submissions, but due to time constraints, appreciate prompt notification if your work is accepted elsewhere by withdrawing it within DuoTrope’s system.

Please provide a cover letter, indicating the content you are submitting, including the titles, and a short author bio in the third person.

We are unable to accept previously published work. By the term “published” we mean work where another organization or individual has established rights to the work, we do not mean work that has been published on a platform you control, such as a blog, newsletter, or social media site. Should we accept your submission, we will ask you to remove all copies.

Submit

Dear Fear Letter to Fear Foods - Nonfiction Entry Fee: usd $3.00 Open

Closes on Thursday, October 15, 2026 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time (Mexico) (in 32 days).

We are seeking creative nonfiction that follows the epistolary form addressed to a specific food or dish.

We are open to hybrid or experimental forms. However, we have the following constraints on formatting:

Please submit your work as a Word document.
Use a readable font (Times New Roman, Garamond, etc.) in 12-point.
Prose: please send only one essay at a time, under 2000 words. Please double-space your work (unless alternative spacing is necessary if you are experimenting with form).
We are not able to accept hybrid works involving video, music, or other streaming content at this time.
We cannot accept any material generated by artificial intelligence.

Submit

Dear Fear Letters to Fear Foods - Hybrid Entry Fee: usd $3.00 Open

Closes on Thursday, October 15, 2026 11:59 PM PDT (in 32 days).

For work that combines photos, artwork, and text, such as hybrid, visual essay, image-text, visual narrative, multimodal, and mixed media, at this time, please send one to six images at one time in a format that is generally readable (such as jpeg). We will ask for higher resolution images upon review. We understand that specific dpi and file size criteria can be a challenge for this kind of work. For inquiries about specific file sizes, please use the contact form on our website.
We are not able to accept hybrid works involving video, music, or other streaming content at this time.
We cannot accept any material generated by artificial intelligence.

Submit