Variety Pack: Issue XV, Fall 2026 Gold Star Program Gold Star Fee: usd $3.00

From September 1st-October 15th we will be open for submissions for our Fall 2025 issue. Our Fall reading period is open to all and is themed as COSMIC HORROR. So go ahead, submit away, send us your weirdest and most enchanting. How do you define cosmic horror??? At this time, we will be charging $3.00 for submissions going forward in an effort to not only cover operational costs but to ensure artists and writers are paid! We look forward to your submissions!

General guidelines: Please greet the editors! Our names or "Hey editors" is fine :), include a word count for all fiction and non-fiction in the email body, and include a brief 3rd person bio including your pronouns and any social media handles you have (Instagram & Twitter).

Please continue below to find more specific guidelines for each genre:

Fiction

• Flash Fiction - Up to 1,000. Up to three pieces in ONE Document
• Short Fiction/Novellette - Between 1,001 and 9,000 words. Anything over 1,000 words please only submit ONE piece at a time
• The preferred format is Times New Roman, double-spaced, 12-point font
• Please also adhere to our guidelines and send only one submission per reading period.

Nonfiction

• Send up to 3 NF pieces, a maximum of 5,000 words. If sending multiple CNF pieces/essays send all in one document. Please do not exceed 1,500 words per piece if you plan to send three CNF pieces, unless solicited by editor. Please include word count in the body of your email
• The preferred format is Times New Roman, double-spaced, 12-point font.

Poetry

• Send us your ghazals, sonnets, haikus, senryu, diptychs, triptychs, prose poems, sestinas, pantoums, other traditional forms, free verse, experimental forms, we're open to anything, though epic poems will be a hard sell for sure
• The preferred format is Times New Roman, single-spaced, 12-point font.
• Send up to 4 poems in ONE document.

Visual Arts/Multimedia

• Our visual arts submissions include a wide net of VA work, from illustrations to photography to screen prints to comics to collages to full blown comics/cartoons!

SUBMISSIONS HOUSEKEEPING

Variety Pack takes pride in being a journal of inclusivity, so we will accept submissions from all walks of life. We do try to stray away from work with overtly graphic sex and violence, for obvious reasons. We have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, islamophobia, antisemitism, fatphobia, or any other writing along those lines. Also please adhere to our formats and guidelines listed below. Please adhere to the dates we have open for submissions via our social media handles on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Be sure to also check out our News/Announcements sections for updates too.

ANYTHING sent before and/or after our reading period is open, will be deleted and unread. None of us here want to discourage anyone from submitting their work, so please respect our deadlines, follow our social media updates, as we work hard to make sure both are posted.

We absolutely will NOT accept any written or visual work created through generative AI, we can agree AI and Generative AI have their place in society, destroying the fabric of entire literary arts community ain't one of them!

Variety Pack acquires the First Electronic Rights and Non-exclusive Archival Rights. All other rights remain with the author. All rights revert back to author, 60 days after publication. If you reprint your piece elsewhere, we'd love to be included in the acknowledgments.

Simultaneous submissions are okay, but we do not accept previously published pieces, and if your piece is accepted elsewhere... CONGRATS, but also please withdraw your submission once that's the case.

We'll NO LONGER be accepting multiple submissions in multiple categories. ONE CATEGORY TO CHOOSE FROM. We love to see other writers branch out into different genres, but we have seen the space this can also take up. Ex: say publishing someone who has a really great essay and has a poem published in the same issue, while we appreciate showcasing both talents it limits the space for new writers to find a home for their piece.

We usually respond to submissions between the end of our reading period and the week before the release date of any given issue.

We are a PAYING MARKET! WOOT! WOOT! $13 for poetry and visual art; $23 for prose.

Payment will be made via PayPal, Ca$happ, or Venmo!

We will not be able to pay for interviews/reviews at this time (We hope to change that in the future)

Any further questions please feel free to queries please email us at [email protected]