Glossy Planet Gold Star Program Gold Star

The waiting room. The late-night emergency. The person who takes an Uber instead of paying for an ambulance. We’re seeking flash fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about health, sickness, disability, and the gap between the care we need and what we can access.

Write about chronic illness and what it means to live inside a body that requires ongoing negotiation. We’re also interested in prose and poetry about birth, death, and surviving the middle. Who continues to show up—nurses, community health workers, that one neighbor who brings over dinner on bad days—and who disappears when health becomes a burden? If health is wealth, what happens when we can’t afford the bill? If you’ve ever been frustrated about getting sick in a system that makes it expensive to get better, we want you to write about it.

We welcome writing of all genres and forms: flash fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid work. Three winners will be selected and published at the end of October. To get a sense of what we publish, read our past winners.

We also offer editorial commentary on submissions. For an additional fee, you’ll receive two feedback notes from our experienced editors or readers. To learn more and submit, scroll down on our Duosuma page.

Prizes:

• First place: $1,000 and publication
• Second place: $200 and publication
• Third place: $100 and publication

Guidelines:

• Submissions are open to all writers, no matter your publication history.
• Send us unpublished work only. (If it’s posted on social media, that counts as published.)
• Prose length: Up to 1,000 words. Poetry length: Up to two pages.
• If you are submitting multiple pieces, combine them in one document.
• You may submit up to two pieces in a single submission, as long as the entire document fits within the total word/page limits. (For example, two poems together must fit on two pages total; two flash pieces together must stay under 1,000 words.)
• One entry fee covers one submission, whether you include one piece or two. You can submit multiple times, but each requires its own $10 fee.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but let us know if your piece is picked up elsewhere.
• Submit prose double-spaced in a standard format, like Times New Roman. Absolutely zero Comic Sans.
• We have no format requirements for poetry or other works.
• If your piece doesn’t quite fit any of the genres listed, select the closest one and note how you would describe it in your cover letter.
• In your brief cover letter, include what genre you’re writing in and your publication history. If you haven’t published before, that’s great! Send it!
• International submissions are welcome, as long as the work is primarily in English. Code-switching/meshing is also welcome.
• We accept your own translations of your unpublished work, translated without the use of AI.
• Absolutely no AI-generated or AI-assisted work.
• Please consider including a content warning if your work engages in potentially triggering content. Your work will not be judged based on this warning. We will appreciate the consideration you're giving to our reading staff.
• We aim to reply within four weeks.
• Questions? Contact us at [email protected].

Submit

This option is for writers who want to receive editorial feedback on their work. Our response to your submission will include a two feedback notes, about one paragraph each, from two experienced editors or readers. These notes will offer observations on what's working well, opportunities for revision, and how the work aligns with what we're drawn to publish. This feedback reflects the conversations our editors have when discussing submissions internally.

If you are submitting multiple pieces, use your cover letter to tell us which piece you would like feedback on. If this is not noted, we'll give feedback on the first piece in the document.

Please follow the same theme and guidelines for our Bad Medicine challenge.

The waiting room. The late-night emergency. The person who takes an Uber instead of paying for an ambulance. We’re seeking flash fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about health, sickness, disability, and the gap between the care we need and what we can access.

Write about chronic illness and what it means to live inside a body that requires ongoing negotiation. We’re also interested in prose and poetry about birth, death, and surviving the middle. Who continues to show up—nurses, community health workers, that one neighbor who brings over dinner on bad days—and who disappears when health becomes a burden? If health is wealth, what happens when we can’t afford the bill? If you’ve ever been frustrated about getting sick in a system that makes it expensive to get better, we want you to write about it.

We welcome writing of all genres and forms: flash fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid work. Three winners will be selected and published at the end of October. To get a sense of what we publish, read our past winners.

Prizes:

• First place: $1,000 and publication
• Second place: $200 and publication
• Third place: $100 and publication

Submit