Editor Interviews

We encourage you to thoroughly review our submission guidelines to make sure your work won't be auto-rejected. Then, we encourage you to review the free sample stories on our website to get a sense of what we publish. As said before, we would love to see you full send it. By this, we mean create a piece that makes it obvious you were fully committed to its creation. If you think anyone could doubt your level of investment, give it another go. Make your work the best that it can be.

Don’t self-select yourself out of consideration. We’re happy to consider pieces that don’t fit perfectly within a single genre, or risk-taking works that may seem out of place in other literary magazines. We invite you to get weird with it.

First, I recommend focusing on your writing and getting your manuscript into the best shape it can possibly be, even if it takes longer than you hoped and expected.
Second, once you have completed your manuscript, you will want to figure out what your publication goals are and what you are looking for from your publisher. This also takes time and research, but it will help you find the press who will bring your book into the world and support your writing career for the long term.

Read the journal first, then send us the work you most want to stand behind. We are interested in many styles and forms, but the work should feel intentional, fully considered, and alive. We value strong voice, image, structure, movement, and a distinctive way of seeing. Follow the guidelines carefully, but don’t try to write toward our taste.

Please make sure you have a good ending. An ambiguous ending is perfectly fine, but I don't want to read your entire story and feel like you gave up on the last paragraph. Caleb might disagree, but I usually win the accept-or-reject battles with this opinion.

Don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or demeaning towards any marginalized groups. (And no, submissions using bigotry to be “edgy” don’t get a pass.) Don’t use trauma or violence for shock value. Don’t treat sexual assault as a joke. Keep in mind that Salt Hill’s editorial board—and readership—is comprised of individuals with a a multitude of experiences, backgrounds, and identities. Keep our humanity in mind when you send in your work.
Do proofread your writing and make sure you’re submitting to us in the right file format. Do ask yourself: am I proud of this piece? If you are, take the plunge! We take care in our reading, and we're delighted by any piece that seems whole and wholly fresh.

You must read at least 3 of our books. How else will you know we're a good fit for your work?

Familiarize yourself with our list but don't assume anything is off the table. Please understand that we can accept less than 2% of what is submitted to us.

Read our sample issue! (https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com/sample) Read the Wikipedia entry for "The Trolley Problem" or "The Allegory Of The Cave." Then, ask yourself, is the thing I am submitting the kind of thing that can support a group of people talking for 30 minutes about the ethics/underlying philosophy of the choices the character is making? If that's not the case, we probably aren't a good fit for your story, even if it's the best story ever written.

Please read the guidelines and submit to the best of your ability. We prefer punch, short, edited work.
"The most personal is the most creative." - Bong Joon Ho, attributed to Martin Scorsese

Consider our invitation: If you are a poet, prophet, peace-loving artist, if you are tolerant, traditional or anarchistic, haiku or epic, and points in between; if your poems sing, shout, whisper, dance, scratch, tickle, trot or crawl; if you value the humane treatment of every creature and the planet on which we dwell, SoFloPoJo seeks your best work.
What do we mean when we say "your best work?" Or that we seek well-crafted poems that are thematically complex, emotionally nuanced, or "in your face," filled with images that excite wonder, mystery and dread, and challenge the reader to question their assumptions? We invite you to check out our Nominations page to see some of what excited our editors.

Submit, you won't know unless you try.
We read blind and publish the work that touches us the most.
We do our best to send a personalised answer to every submitter and also pick one story and one poem to offer full feedback during our submission call.

read samples read samples read samples

Read what we publish. Adhere to submission guidelines.

The challenge is that every idea we create must pass through a human mind, which means we can never fully escape ourselves. Yet the attempt is valuable. By imagining what could be, we stretch the boundaries of what we consider possible.

Think of it like sharing your most personal secret with a friend. We care for your work and are grateful you chose us, whether or not we end up publishing you.

Read the mags, various collections, competition and space is tough. Give it your best. Use the Shunn template given on the submission page, no AI please

Lean into complexity. Tarot resists easy interpretation, and so do we. We gravitate toward work that embraces ambiguity, contradiction, and curiosity over certainty. Read all of our submission guidelines and send us your work that feels most intimate and alive.

Since I mostly review the poetry submissions, I often look for impactful verses that make me want to think or wonder. I love pieces that have beautiful imagery, fun metaphors, and cool themes.
I handle the initial review, and I get extremely annoyed when I have to go through tons of submissions that don't follow the guidelines, are AI-generated, or have too many errors. All our editors are putting in a lot of time to keep the magazine going, and it's exasperating to think that a submitter didn't recheck their work or put in any extra effort.
If I can connect to the piece or the author's voice, chances are I will accept it. As a reader (this may sound selfish!), I want to read poems that I can resonate with, laugh about, cry about, or just think, 'Hey! That makes sense.'

Beyond following the submission guidelines, make absolutely sure your work is ready to share. It’s a real shame when someone sends something to us prematurely. I hate having to turn a story down that would have been absolutely amazing if the author had just held onto it long enough, and given it the time and effort it deserved.

Consider introducing greater complexity and nuance into the people, relationships, or ideas in your work.

Read through our tags! Not enough people bear this in mind. One of our goals for the year is to further streamline the tags to make accessing our, say, 'experimental,' or 'visual art' pages in particular easier. The best advice for submitting almost anywhere is to read the publication itself. We are flexible when it comes to promoting work we think is 'good' (???) even if it doesn't always fit with our organising principle, pomoclassicism. But if you read through and get a sense of the type of work we gravitate towards, it will be easier to decide if we are the right publication for your piece(s). Sometimes we have to turn away viable literary writing because it does not fit within our mission in social or literary terms.

Besides the standard "make sure to follow the guidelines" adage, I'd say that writers considering Blood Tree Lit as a home for their work should play with their pieces. Stellar writing is stellar writing, but are there any other little experiments you could be testing that could take the piece to the next level and really put your stamp as an author on it? Maybe the answer is "No, the piece has reached it's full potential," but sometimes the page can surprise you (and delight us).

Be brazen and trust in self! All have an equal opportunity to submit one or more pieces of their work for publishing consideration in our anthologies, regardless of where they are in their writing journey.
Acceptance is based solely on the merits of what is submitted, adherence to the current anthology edition theme, and our published guidelines.
Submission opportunities are open to all: lay writers, academic, and other professional writers alike. Our editorial ethos embraces the full gamut of lived experiences, ensuring that diverse, underrepresented, and marginalised voices also find a home with us. In summary, we encourage submissions from all without condition, except those stipulated within our general and theme-specific anthology guidelines.

1. No info dumps. Start in media res.
2. Make the trope the centerpiece of your action, not the sideline which reveals itself at the end.
3. Resolve the conflict. I don't want the first part of a longer series. It must be self-contained.

Don't overthink it. Submitting is hard enough with the rejection rates. If you have something you love, send it our way. Maybe we'll love it too but if we don't, don't take it as a judgment on you or your work. All decisions are subjective. Please do make an attempt to look at guidelines so you don't send a type of attachment we won't open or a novella when we publish flash but also don't try to presuppose what we'll like. Half the time we don't know what that is ourselves until we see it.
We're not so much into fussy anything, or precision anything, our vibe is a little looser, a little more chaotic because inside, aren't most of us like that?
I guess I'd advise this - read your submission and ask yourself, is it hiding behind something? Is it keeping a veneer over the emotion or thread you're trying to explore? Have you coated it with distance or irony or intellectualism to the detriment of what you're trying to achieve? Have you forced it into an order that's chafing, does it long to break out a little? If so, let it loose. Dig a little deeper. Get beyond defences, even a little bit, to the raw place we all hide. If you can bear it, and if it's safe for you to do so. Because I guarantee whatever you're feeling, a million others are too and they will benefit from what you wrote.
Also don't look down on lightness and joy, or feel they're not worthy writing areas. They're worthy. It's possible things are as they are in part because we forgot to love the things that are lovable about ourselves and others.
The quotidian is as fantastical and marvellous as the, well, fantastical and marvellous. Isn't existence just fantastical and marvellous? Existence is so far-fetched. How it is even possible? Even the littlest, quietest life is a shocking implausibility. There is so much to write about, in all things.

An acceptance is a combination of brand matching, great storytelling, timing, and more.
We celebrate great storytelling, and we love when authors "get us."
Intrepidlode defines our stories--stories of alarmingly individual characters with specific goals who take the reader on an amazing journey. We love emotional, overcoming, and inspiring stories.
Our stories are free to read--start there. If you understand those, you'll understand intrepidlode. :-)

Please don't overthink our mission statement. A lot of people see that we are a leftist, working class, literary journal, and they think we just want to publish work about how fascism is bad (it is). But the work that we consistently find effective is the work that finds an approach that isn't as direct. In our tenth issue we will be publishing a piece about a community very specific to the writer. And the work speaks about things like, climate change, gentrification, the price of rent, but isn't presented as commentary, it's just presented as reality. And by the end you have a very clear look at a community that is either completely alien to you, or uncomfortably familiar. We loved the piece, obviously, but we want the work in any given issue to touch on many different aspects of our shared struggle. There is almost certainly a viewpoint that is specific to your life that we haven't seen before. We would rather see that than the 500th, "orange man bad," piece. Your piece about raising a child, taking care of a sick relative, a bad date, trash on the side of the highway, a shitty day at your job, is political, and far more interesting.

Please follow the instructions on the submission page. :)

Don't send your first draft, and please make sure you're submitting to the correct genre.

Take a look at the most recent issue and maybe use some of the work from it to respond to as a prompt. If we've been musing on an idea or theme that emerges in that issue, we'll be interested in new takes on that idea for a future issue. On the other hand, sometimes we don't know what we want until we see it!
Another suggestion: if you send more than one poem, include at least one that's different from the others in subject and form. That will give us more options.

Join us at our upcoming Community Write-Ins! We'll share behind-the-scenes insights to help you craft your best piece, saving some quiet writing time to work on your entry. Plus you get to hear exactly what the judges are looking for. Check our website for current write-in dates: https://www.tadpolepress.com/community-write-in

Our favorite submissions are those that surprise us and those that make us feel something. Send us your strangest piece, your most beloved piece, the one that just can't seem to find a home anywhere else... especially if you're worried it might be "too queer" to find a home. Don't be afraid to take a risk! We're open regularly, so you can always try us with something new!

The only real advice is what you should do for every magazine: read what they've published previously, follow their guidelines, and believe in your work.

Please read the submission guidelines and do not submit NSFW content. We accept a wide variety of themes and do not restrict submitters to a specific topic for each edition. Do not submit poems by copy-pasting them into email; instead, insert them into a document and send it over!

Have a sense of humor, understand that Art is a never-ending process and not a destination, don't be afraid, and send us something authentic. If it's real, we will know, and we will publish it.

Be honest, genuine, brave, and fully imagined.

1. Read Qu to determine whether we are the right place for your work.
2. Polish your work. Sleep on it. Put it away. Re-read it. Work it in your feedback group. Then send it to us.
3. Gain clarity about what your work is about in one sentence. If you know, readers will know.

Submit the very best version of your story. Scrutinize every word choice, connect the thoughts, remove as many instances of "that" as possible, fictionalize the real brand names. Read the room to know if your story is a fit. For all writers, know that Short Beasts values your voice. We try to help authors publish the best possible iteration of their short works. We are open-minded, employ high standards, and aim to inspire writers and readers alike.

When we say send us your best work, we really mean it. The talent pool is extraordinary. Please don't send trunk stories. We want new work.

Make sure your characters are fully developed and relatable. Never sacrifice character development for pacing. Readers are happy to turn pages a little less quickly if they are deeply committed to the characters and their outcomes.

Comb through our archived issues and send us work you feel like we have yet to publish. Read through our submission instructions ten times over if you need to, because nothing is worse for us than receiving a good submission and having to decline it because you didn’t follow our guidelines. -AJ Lugo Cortes, Managing Editor

Read the guidelines thoroughly, and send in polished work. -Lauren Tivey, Faculty Advisor

IHRAM Press proudly provides a platform for these voices, offering a space for poetry and prose to resonate with reflections of emotion, hope, and the enduring connection to one’s identity. It's important to stay on theme, review our submission guidelines, and include all the required supplemental information before submitting as this helps keep the process streamlined. I believe it's beneficial to read other works similar to your style, open your horizons, share your work with people outside of your family or friend network, be open to feedback, and craft your own unique style.

Be yourself. Be honest, be real. We work with humans, we are human. Do the best you can with what you know. When you learn better, do better.

If you submit a poem with unconventional structure achieved by special manual edits to the doc, and your piece gets accepted, please let us know some specifics about your piece. If our editors have questions, we'll also reach out, but having extra information about how the piece was made will be helpful to us when trying to preserve all creative liberties.

Peruse our website and past issues (everything is free) to get a sense of the work we're looking for. Logistics-wise: Visit our website, our Instagram, or our Chill Subs listing for information about our reading periods and open calls for work. If you're submitting multiple pieces, please include them all in one document. Send in submissions via email, and withdraw submission by replying to your original submission email.

Ensure that the first page of your story (or the first poem in your packet) is on fire. Be it an intense scene or a vivid setting or a unique character voice or a wild premise--whatever you choose, be sure to have something on page one that grabs the reader immediately and does not let go.

I would ask them to read our content, our mission and vision statement (in About Us) and follow the submission guidelines closely.
Also, I would request they read their copy and do grammar checks before they submit. We do not publish hate, angst, offensive language or propaganda. We try to remain objective while assessing the content.

Does this story move you? Is it a story only you can tell?

Read recent work in Litro before submitting and send the piece that feels most unmistakably yours, not what you think a magazine wants. We respond best to writing with a strong narrative engine, clean sentences, and a clear sense of place, culture, or lived context. Keep submissions focused: one piece at a time, properly proofread, with a brief third-person bio and straightforward cover note. If the work is simultaneous, say so and withdraw promptly if it’s accepted elsewhere.

If you’re thinking about entering the Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction, the best place to start is to listen to the Not Quite Write podcast!
‘Longlist’ episodes feature detailed chats about the submissions we receive each round. In ‘Shortlist’ episodes, we deliver dramatised readings of the Top 6 stories along with our judging notes. And in ‘Daredevil’ episodes, we read and dissect entries to the competition, providing detailed critique on each story’s strengths and weaknesses.
There’s so much to learn together about the art and craft of writing flash fiction, and we love providing the space to have that conversation!

When sending in submissions, tell us something about yourself. We're not only putting out a publication, we are seeking to develop a community of artists and authors. Also, make sure your submission applies to the theme assigned to each issue. A list of monthly themes may be viewed at our website.

Send us work that we have never seen before. However, be mindful of craft. One can only break tradition if one knows tradition.

We look for clear voices and demonstrated skill. Fiction that can get the reader from point A to B without a map app. Poems that can get around the barrels and make the tight turns. Know what your work is trying to do and help it without getting in its way. The reader wants to walk with you, but don't yank her sleeve like a kid.
And if you send anything about stones, bones, scars, or your grandmother, make it something that sounds like nothing that's come before. Be enchanted, in awe. Let your words make us hear the music you were listening to when you wrote them.

I could repeat the same old advice here, like "be sure to follow the submission guidelines" or "read some of what we've published to get a feel for what we like," because those ring true for everyone, including us. Mostly though, my advice is this: if you've edited your piece and think it's ready to be sent, always do one more edit pass beyond when you consider it ready. And the best advice? Don't self-reject. If you meet our criteria, send it to us!

The Offing publishes work that challenges, experiments, provokes — work that pushes literary and artistic forms and conventions. So, send us your favorite work that you feel most proud of, and don't give up.

It's cliche, but please read some of the stories we've published as well as our submission guidelines. Between the two, you should get a good sense of what we're interested in. We also appreciate a cover letter. It can be short and sweet, but you'd be surprised how many blank emails we get with nothing but an attached submission.

Every weekend, we offer a service where writers can get feedback on their pieces. Before submitting, it would probably be a good idea to get feedback on some pieces to better understand your strengths and weaknesses.

Familiarizing yourself with Home Planet News may help you see what kinds of work we like.

Make sure you are submitting a short story. We get all sorts of submissions: poetry, novels, and plays and...we don't publish those. In the era of AI, I really want to emphasize - do not send us your full novel! I don't want your entire novel in my files. But, if you have a short story, make sure there is a complete narrative. The customers who buy these chapbooks want to feel like they've read a complete narrative. So, ambiguous endings or excerpts from longer pieces, don't tend to sell.

Does the work resonate ?

If you're submitting writing, make sure you've done some basic edits to look for spelling mistakes. For art, make sure the picture is high resolution. We get a lot of submissions, and we often don't have time to edit works that would otherwise be very good entries.

Just do it. Even if you're iffy on the grammar, structure, or anything else, we love to work with writers who submit to us to be sure their piece is published in its most polished state.

Read our guidelines and check out our recent publications (everything is free to read online).

Read the magazine before submitting and get a sense of our style, themes, and tone. We love work that surprises us: imaginative, witty, and deeply engaged with nature in unexpected ways. Aim for timelessness: create something that feels just as engaging now as it would in 20 years. Take creative risks. Be mindful of setting (see later answer)

Please review past publications to see what kind of work best matches Tigerpetal Press's identity.

Be yourself, and be daring. If you have an idea that you think is a bit too ridiculous to work, give it a hot go and see what we think. We don't get a lot of submissions but we do get enough that works tend to fall into larger categories of styles and themes. It'll be more fun to try out a unique idea or concept, than to attempt to be the best version of something predictable and safe.

Please review recent editions of Fig Tree Lit to get a sense of the quality of the work that we accept. It is important to note that we do not accept works-in-progress.

1. Have a fresh take on the subject.
2. Do a cliche-pass: remove any dialogue, prose, or plot cliches.
3. Do NOT frontload your book with dull exposition.
4. PROOFREAD your manuscript before submitting it.

Read our previous issues, but also know that we’re open to work that may not match what we’ve already published, so give us a try. We accept up to three pieces at a time, so you have three times the opportunity.

Read what we've published before, and then send us what we don't have yet. Send us your unique voice and perspective. Come at "the Midwest" in a new way. As always: revise, edit. And forgive us for not being able to take everything, and for being only human readers, who might occasionally miss something we shouldn't.

Honestly, read the magazine. I suppose this is true of all pubs that one wants to submit work to. We have a through line of culture slightly askew, so it's important to fit the vibe. I look a the vibe of the magazine as a whole and make sure it all goes together like a good meal. So sometimes people send us great stuff that's just not on target for what we'd include. We have some examples on our website for those who can't find the magazine in a bookstore (but you can order a copy online!)

We receive many amazing stories, and we’re truly grateful to the community of writers who trust us with their work. If I had one piece of advice—and I try to share it whenever I can—it would be to trust your voice and take the emotional risk. We love seeing that on the page. The strongest submissions commit fully to their interior world, even when it’s uncomfortable, and make us see the world more vividly.

Ask yourself whether your submission resembles any story one of the above listed “classical short story writers” has written. We say right in our guidelines that the more a story reads like it was written by Flannery O’Connor or Katherine Mansfield, the better.
Other questions to consider: Does your story start as close to the end as possible? Is there tension moving the story forward? Does every scene and every detail earn its keep? Has at least one character changed by the end of the story (or has a character taught us something by not changing)?

Read voraciously; literature helps literature. Recognize what you are inheriting—how words are expansive and difficult and cool—so that you may learn to disobey what you think you know. “The poem is always smarter than you,” good! Your work is most alive when it arrives without expectation, is not predetermined, and does not rely upon factual truth but rather creates its own.

We're primarily a horror publication, but any dark disturbing tale will be considered. We look for emotional, disturbing fiction. Try to have your work ready to print. Polish your work before submitting it. As they say, there are no great writers, only great re-writers. Your characters should be believable. Their words and actions should make some sort of sense. They may act in an unusual manner, but they should be true to their fictional world.

We want to publish writers who value their craft. Demonstrate your mastery of language and show us you understand the structure of your chosen form, even if you're subverting tradition. The difference between a writer deliberately breaking the rules and a writer who doesn't understand the rules is fairly obvious.
Also, proofread your work! If we receive a story that switches tenses halfway through, or a poem with spelling errors, it doesn't make for a great first impression.

Read one or more of our titles. We're not saying that you have to shell out for a copy. Instead, request one of our books at your local library.
Then, please be sure to follow our submission instructions. They're clearly outlined within our submissions manager.

Read the guidelines carefully. When work is submitted where it is obvious the writer did not do his/her homework, it's almost always rejected. Pay attention to the season of the issue. Even though there are no hard-set themes, winter based poems will most likely appear in the winter issue, summer based poems will most likely appear in the summer issue, and so forth. Read the past issues! Get a sense for the vibe of Soul Poetry. I want to see pieces that have a clear message or story, that are relatable to others in some way, and that leave an impression on the reader long after he/she has left the work.

Read past issues. Don't send me misery pieces. Do be brave and imaginative in your choices about subject. I delight in extended metaphors and in things that couldn't possibly happen in real life but speak to real emotions and situations. If you are bursting with pride about this story it will show in the writing and that's the kind of energy I like.

There's probably no specific uniting factor across the archive outside of pieces having that je se sais quoi that draws me to them. If you're rejected and want work in the mag, keep submitting. I accepted work from someone that must've submitted 16 times across fiction and poetry last week and it was the best feeling ever to find that perfect match between us. I really am rooting for everyone, and a rejection doesn't say anything about the quality of your work.

Send us your best work. Have someone proof your work before submitting. The journey of the writer is as compelling as the work they submit.

Of course, read our recent books. For a sense of WWPH, read our landmark 2025 anthology: AMERICA'S FUTURE: poetry & prose in response to tomorrow edited by Caroline Bock and Jona Colson.

We favour shorter, single voice narrated pieces that work well for audio but we have also featured audio dramas that have been submitted to us. We will consider genre/speculative fiction of a high literary quality.

Reading a few back issues is enormously helpful. Even though topics and styles will vary widely, you can get a sense of the quality we are looking for and an idea of what just works.

A great idea for a book is merely a great idea for a book. Perfect writing is merely perfect writing. Brilliant frames and scaffolding, and brilliant line edits and shaping, only open the door. You still have to walk through and bring the reader with you. And you must be willing to deal with your own haunt without making a fetish of it. The point of squinting at what we've published in the past is not only to learn what writers we like, but to learn something about our readers,
As for craft notes, our free substack provides enough. The most oft cited reasons are stylistic ones--showing us the volcano but not showing us the lava, having more frame than painting, locking the speaker into the center of every frame, using conditional language to swarm the reader. Using transition words when there is no actual transition, and using time markers for sequencing rather than time also tends to stumble the planet.
The most often ignored guideline is to write a brief artist statement, and too many authors confuse this with an elevator pitch or agent query letter. Don't be a salesman.

Take chances. Don't be afraid to think outside the box or go anti-theme. We like the dark and gritty just as much as the hopeful and touching. We don't shy away from hard conversations. And remember, we are all human, who make mistakes. If you have a question, issue, or a recommendation for an accessibility improvement, we want to hear from you.

We interpret the theme very broadly, so we don't just want to see work about a protagonist getting revenge (though we do like to see that). Sometimes we want to root for the villain. Sometimes we want to see justice served. We love a good, honest confession. We love folks who tell on themselves directly or indirectly. The best advice is try us. And I think the next best advice is violence for the sake of violence is not what we're looking for (and that on-page violence is seldom what we look for). The next best advice after that is there are a lot of ways of writing about justice that aren't personal. Though we love it when it's personal, too.

Be familiar with what we publish. Read the guidelines.

Two elements that lead to a quick rejection are not following the theme or not having a speculative element. Don't be afraid to go out on a limb with regard to stretching the theme, as it will likely help your chances. If we have 20 submissions that have similar ideas, we're only going to take the best one of those.

Write the best book you can.

Don't send us something you think we want to pubilsh, send us what YOU want to publish. Honesty in the work shines through.

Write to the prompts. The most recent four prompts are always in the call.

For those considering submitting to LOL Comedy, focus on creating work that’s engaging and consistently funny. If you’re submitting literary works, we love creative formats, but the piece should be well-written and the humor should carry the piece throughout. For cartoons and comics, strong, high-quality artwork is just as important as the joke itself. We also do not accept pieces created by AI (everything should be your original work). Above all, bring your unique voice and have fun with it!

Make sure to do your word count and meet the exactly-50-words rule! Your story should go somewhere; your characters should do something. The reader should feel like something has taken place, either within the events of the story or within the reader's own eyes. Accomplishing this is the whole challenge of the 50-word format, and I'm sure you'll find it as rewarding as I do!
Be sure to read through the guidelines on the Submissions page on FiftyWordStories.com.

Brink Books gravitates toward work that’s innovative, genre-blurring, and bold. We look for manuscripts that push boundaries; however, craft, clarity, and deliberate structure are still essential. Our anthology, Malleable and True, is a great way to familiarize yourself with the Brink aesthetic, and it also includes prompts for creating your own hybrid work.

The best advice we can offer is to send the piece that feels true to you. We welcome work from writers at all stages, and we read every submission with attention and gratitude. We would love for submitters to be readers as well, because reading the journal is the clearest way to understand our editorial sensibilities. However, we also recognize the reality of the literary world: it is impossible for any writer to read every publication. If you are unsure whether your piece is a fit, we would rather you send it and allow us the privilege of considering it. It is an honor to be entrusted with work that carries personal meaning, and we treat that responsibility with care.

Read what we've published. Follow the guidelines. Don't forget about humor.

Purchase and read our chapbooks.

Read what we've already published. You'll get a very good sense of the type of stories we're looking for. Also, always review the submission guidelines before you submit again in case they've changed since the last time. If you feel like you've seen a story similar to your own somewhere recently, you probably have and it might be a good idea to file your story away for a little while.

"Gothic" is not just a synonym for "horror." We receive many submissions that are horror but not Gothic horror, or dark fantasy but not Gothic fantasy.
Also, when we say multi-genre, we mean it. We'd love to see more secondary-world fantasy, more historical and contemporary science fiction, and more non-supernatural romance and mystery stories—but, again, only if there's something recognizably Gothic about them.

Read some of our books. What we publish is quite an eclectic mix, but always strange.

Proofread your piece. Get another person to proofread it for you. Be certain that what you wrote is what you meant to write.

Make it distinctive. Make sure it's "done." Follow our submission guidelines.

While Wordgathering gives preference to the work of contributors with disabilities, our editorial team welcomes anyone’s work submitted in accordance with our submission guidelines.
https://wordgathering.com/submission-guidelines/
We encourage people who are considering submitting work to Wordgathering to read examples of work previously published in the journal.

Please read an issue to get a feeling of what I publish.

Please read the submission guidelines! We have them for a reason, and when you don't read them before submitting it's quite obvious. Also, all of our issues are on our website and free to peruse and download-- take a look at our past issues to see the types of work we tend to publish! We publish all kinds of work, but we do have some preferences towards tone and vibe that pop up clearly in our past issues.

Just go for it! We are an eclectic and diverse group of editors and our tastes vary. Have something to say and say it well. Proofread. Please don't send us a draft. We can usually tell when you've just typed "The End" and then immediately hit the send button. We can also tell when you haven't read our submission guidelines. Also, we don't need a synopsis of your submission in your cover letter. We're used to reading for ourselves. Bonus hint: shorter pieces tend to receive more love.

Read a few editions to get an idea of what we like! Your work should relate to our current theme but we love being surprised (and delighted) by the many ways writers interpret that theme. Don’t feel you need to be overt about the science—use it as a jumping-off point and see what happens. We want to inspire curiosity in readers, not teach at them.

Give your work to a friend to read before you submit. Please read the magazine to get a sense of what we publish.

READ THE GUIDELINES.

Most importantly, catch my eye quickly. Don't let me drift attention from your submission. Make me obsessed, make me want to know more about you and your art.
Second most importantly, please be from Maryland!

We really love work that is voice driven and speaks to something new and exciting. We encourage writers to challenge themselves when submitting to us. Since we provide a theme and materials for inspiration, we want writers to feel encouraged to put themselves somewhere different and tap into that different part of themselves.

Read! Not just what we publish, but also the work of writers you admire. Read as if it were nourishment, because it is. The care you take as a reader will always show in the quality of your writing.
And don’t be afraid to send us a genre you haven’t seen in the magazine. We’re still young, and we’re always excited to feature a style or a writer we’ve never published before.

Write from the heart. Create from the heart. Find your inner truth and build upon your ideas to improve life, not just for yourself, but also for others. I'm looking for individual creativity, backstories, memoirs, and poetry that uplift and promote betterment in the world and personal experience.

Please inform us at the outset if you are simultaneously submitting your work elsewhere (it's best if you're not), and let us know immediately if anything you've sent us has been taken elsewhere. As for translations, please include, if possible, copies of the original texts, and let us know whether or not you have already secured permission to publish your versions. (it's best if you have.)

Think of how you read fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction: if the piece doesn’t grab you from the start, it’s not going to endure. How can you grip the reader and keep them hanging on? Is the heart of the piece beating noticeably in the coat of the prose or poetry? When is less more, and when is more actually more?
Enough riddles: tell it true, even in a roundabout way.

Congrats for finishing that story, for one! Second, use all the words if you think you have to. Snuggle right up to that 5000 word limit if you feel the story needs that extra wiggle room. And third, always give it another read before send off.

Give us something fun! Or something thought-provoking, well-edited, and intriguing. We love work that is exciting, as well as Christ-centered.

We tend to shy away from many of the gimmicks and tropes generally associated with flash fiction publications (hermit crab pieces, list pieces, stories that rely on twist endings, 2nd person stories, prose poetry, etc.) in favor of traditional narratives able to tell a complete story in under 700 words.

Be creative in your work. We want diversity, which means we don't only want pieces to be a variety of genres and styles, but to showcase your uniqueness or your weirdness. Break the barriers of what you think others want to read and write something you actually want to say. The themes we select are so broad that we want our contributors to think outside the box and really play with their own interpretations of the subjects. And never don't submit because you think your work is not good enough. It is probably better than you realise.

Read the guidelines. Many pieces get rejected, not because they are bad, but because they didn't meet the requirements. Also, I know this is cliché, but don't take the rejection personally, as we have to consider many factors when making a selection. Lastly, don't be afraid of your weirdness, your uniqueness. It comes out in your art and your writing and is what makes your work stand out. Express what you really want to, not what you think others want to see, hear or read.

We seek work by authors who are obsessed with the potential of language, of its power and its beauty and its danger. If you interested in sending us work during our open reading periods, it helps to be familiar with the kind of work we publish. Most authors we publish, have either purchased our books in the past, read previous work by authors on our press, or are familiar with the work we publish.

Reach out to and connect with other writers. Isn’t that what we seek? To be in communion with others? Get out of your comfort zone and connect. Beautiful work is waiting on the other side.

I know every editor says this, but READ THE GUIDELINES! Address us as "editors" and/or "Cavar and Joyce." Neither of us is a Ms., and misgendering = auto-rejection.
Don't send us "very genre" work (i.e. work better suited to Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, etc.). We're also not the market for coming out/recovery narratives –– send in your queercrip/transMad stories that go beyond discovery, coming out, and acceptance. We want mess.

Read back issues first.
Then submit.

We're not looking for apologetics or evangelism - we want stories that grapple with unanswered questions that religion may have to address in the future.

Instil your submission with your passion for music.

Every literary magazine wants its writers to read their guidelines before submitting and to be familiar with the magazine. For the most part, we are flattered to see that our potential writers really do follow our guidelines and demonstrate familiarity with our publication. We have eclectic tastes, but will avoid material with misogynist, racist, or homophobic/transphobic overtones. We will also generally avoid genre writing. Sometimes we love a piece but find it riddled with errors. In this case, we may ask the author to revise and re-submit.

Trust the opinions of others to tell you when you are nearing something universal and captivating in your artistic process. Follow the stated guidelines. Do not bother with a long or sycophantic cover letter. Do not try to read into it too deeply if we do not buy your piece.

All the obvious: Read the submission guidelines. Proofread your work. Use beta readers and edit. More specifically: Have a strong first line, cut unnecessary filler, and make sure your piece has a strong and coherent thread running through it and tying everything together.

Read the submission guidelines to see if we are suitable fit, also to see if we are currently open to submissions and to find out who we are. Then address us by our names and be concise and interesting in your covering email. Just be yourself. Don't try to impress us too much. If we are to work together we all have to get along so that's more important than your writing CV.

Read the guidelines! Our word count is firm. Also, don't self-reject based on what you've seen us put out before. Our tastes change, our needs change, the world changes.

First, it’s important to read both the call for submissions and the submission guidelines. It also helps to read some of the published works on FEED THE HOLY. Submissions that do not fit the tone or subject matter described in the call for submissions will be returned.

Read the guidelines and work to the theme of the issue you are submitting to. We post the themes for each issue as far in advance as possible in order to give writers lots of time to consider, create, and be inspired. (Long before we actually open for submissions.) Consider: if we're looking for works exploring interdependence and societies based on mutual aid, dive deep into the philosophies of Goldman, Kropotkin and Kimmerer. In the Spring of 2026, we're going to be looking for works that include an eclipse. There happens to be a total solar eclipse in August 2026, look to the skies and be inspired. In short: seek out the calls and send us your best stuff. We only wish we could publish more stories and poetry, because so much of what we receive is awesome. Keep submitting! We ask that writers skip one issue, but it's not a hard and fast rule. Your next story could be the one that makes it in.
Our editors all have writing careers of their own, so if it feels like we choose pieces from a "writer's writers" and "poet's poets" perspective there is a reason for that. Look for that spark in your work that says "Yes. This." We want to know what inspires and excites you, be it a retelling of an ancient trickster tale or envisioning a future very different from this time and place we live in. Be professional in your presentation and don't tell us too much in your cover letter. Poets: make sure your work is speculative poetry. Then: use Shunn as your guide for formatting. We get too many submissions from poets where the name and contact info of the poet is absent. Do the due diligence, submit your work with pride and put your name on it.

Please, please read our Editorial Policy and Submission Guidelines before sending us your submission to avoid any confusion at the end.

Read authors whose names you don't see on social media. Moonstruck Books focuses exclusively on quality of writing, not popularity or analytics. We look for authors whose values align with our own. Our standards are very exacting, and we publish stories that will cling to your imagination like a bloody mist.

Please follow our guidelines for submission. We receive a high number of submissions and do not have time to read those that do not adhere to the guidelines.

Take a look at our other feisty women books. Really convince us about the women you're featuring. For nonfiction we prefer memoir to biography.

Make sure that you know who the reader is. Does your text speak to that child in a voice that doesn't talk down to them? Of course you will have read lots of texts for this target reader and be aware that those children do indeed enjoy them.

Read our prior publications, and read the submission guidelines carefully! We provide a lot of guidance on our likes, dislikes, and how to submit successfully. Do not self-reject! If you have a story that fits our publication, send it in!

Read some of our books to get an idea of what we publish. Don't be disheartened if we 'decline; - more often that not this is just because we only have so much time and space. Try, try and try again.

Make it free of grammatical errors. Make every word count. Make sure it is horror.

Write something strange, reach for weird.

Read the submission guidelines. We consistently get stories for the flash contest that are unthemed.

Be part of the outsider/transgressive lit scene I.e. show up to live and virtual readings. Show some interest in our thing. Publish online. Be cool

ergot. has a very specific tone we are going for. Nearly every piece that we publish is different, but there is a general thread (or set of expectations) that run through all of the work we publish.
We seek work that is dark, strange, surreal or horrific in character.
Just as importantly we seek work that pays close attention to the prose. The prose should be precise and skillful and we avoid work written in genre style. We appreciate literary and minimal prose as well as prose that is innovative, experimental or challenging.

Keep in mind we only accept civics-themed books for readers K-8.

To be a fan of literature and arts.

Check the Loyalhanna Review Archives for examples of previously accepted work. Read the submission requirements and adhere to each step.

Don't be afraid to send in writing where you've taken some risks and the stakes are high for you. We love work with heart and craft.

Help us give your work a fair shake! We have a spot for both a cover letter (that's just for us) and a process note. We're anti-gatekeeping; we'd like for readers to have a sense of where you're coming from or how work was developed, whether you used a python script or found language.

Don’t think about it too much—we’re looking for whatever home means to you or your work; no pressure!

The avant-garde is old! It's been around for more than a 100 years in its diverse forms. How can your work take age-established literary principles and bring them into the 21st century without completely discarding tradition? We'd love to see that!

Think about your character's Third Rail! What is the core belief they have about themselves that determines their choices and which they need to transform in order to get what they want? All Bothered Stories need strong external and internal character goals, motivations and conflicts. The best stories are those in which the sex is woven in, but not the sole conflict.

Read the call instructions a few times and then proceed to give us something "out of the box" and intriguing!

Lit mags receive far more submissions than they can publish so there’s a certain serendipity to the process. Keep going and eventually the stars will align.

Read Panorama first. Well, at least one issue. See where your work could fit in or whether you could add something that could complement our offering. Most of all, keep writing and submitting.

Editors are willing to champion any work if it touches them. Whether that's more academic, factual, fiction, a critique, a meditation, a contemplation, a vision, a travelogue, a memory, a social observation and/or criticism, or any kind of story.

Please read it! People send us all kinds of things that even a cursory glance at one issue would inform them are inappropriate. You can buy a high-quality PDF of any issue from the past couple of decades from our shop page, and if you truly don't have the $7 to buy one, email via the site and ask for a comp copy. I will send you one.

Please make sure you have spent enough time on revision. It's so exciting to finish a piece and send it out into the world...but we suggest holding onto it for one more week and then giving it that final polish. Our theme issues are very open-ended by design, so don't be afraid to think outside the box.

Read the journal and the guidelines.

The best advice I can give someone considering submitting is SUBMIT! It's going to be a yes or no, and if your work is well-written and sticks to the romance/love theme, your chances of acceptance are very good. If, for some reason, the answer is "no," I will tell you why, explain more of what I'm looking for, and invite you to submit again.

The absolute best thing a writer can do is to read our guideline thoroughly before sending us anything.
Also, I always recommend that writers should buy a few books from the presses they are interested in submitting to because it can help determine if it is the right fit.

Proofread, proofread, proofread! And read our past issues... I know every publication says this but that's because it's truly invaluable. Nothing helps your submission (to anywhere) more than actually being familiar with the publication. Submitting an amazing feat of literary excellence that has no speculative elements will, unfortunately, not find a home here. I would also advise writers to consider if their work is better suited for a place like Analog or Asimov's. We don't publish much high fantasy or gore-forward work at Moonday Mag.

One trick I like for offsetting submission addiction is to take your cover letter and full submission, paste or attach it into an email scheduled to yourself for the next day instead. When it arrives, read it as though you were an editor. If you'd accept it, send it along to us. And, of course, sign up for our publication and read it for a few months before submitting.

The best advice I can give is to believe in yourself and your work. Don’t shy away from sharing your creativity every writer or artist starts somewhere. Rejections are a part of the journey, but they’re not the end. If your work gets rejected, don’t take it as a setback. Instead, use it as motivation to improve and make your work even better. Remember, every piece you create is a step toward finding your unique voice. Be confident, keep learning, and trust that your time to shine will come!

Send us your best stuff--classic, edgy, hybrid.

Thoroughly peruse the website in order to get a good overview of the Empire's complexities.

Read some of what we've already published to see whether your work is a fit in spirit as well as meeting our submission guidelines. If you can't afford to buy a back issue, there is work available for free on our website.

Please follow the guidelines and send work pasted into the body of an email. Attachments can carry viruses. Also proofread your story a few times so that it makes sense… and if it isn’t funny or humorous in some way, don’t send it to us. Thank you.

Read through our author spotlight to get a sense of what our style is.

Read and follow the guidelines. Understand the theme and see a clear relation to the theme. Don't be obvious; there is always a hint on what we want for each issue on the call for submissions. Write on the theme and not for the theme.

Please read an issue first. We're online and no paywall, so there's no excuse.

Please read our submission page carefully.
Always send the full manuscript and hone and shorten your pitch. Name and label thing correctly. Your manuscript will be downloaded and get lost if it's named "final 543" or "Marblepress sub"
Also, know your age group and genre.

Even though we call ourselves MEMEZINE, your work does not have to be about a meme. We're more about examining aspects of life in the digital landscape. Read some of the incredible stuff we publish to get a sense of what we're about!

Question your work. "Why am I writing this? why should someone else read it? what am I trying to say? what do I want the reader to takeaway from it? why would someone read beyond the first sentence? the second sentence? the third?" So often we read our own work with our own experiences and emotions in mind. Of course it sounds good and makes sense to us! Try instead to read it cold, with no emotion, as if you're someone else entirely who knows nothing about the author or the work or why it exists. And question everything about it. If it still holds up after the interrogation, submit it.

To look over our website and familiarize themselves with the books that we publish. Someone who is familiar with our publications and can express how their work fits into our overall publishing program is more likely to have success than someone just blindly submitting manuscripts to random publishers. It is also important that authors carefully review the submissions guidelines on our website as this ensures that the review process will proceed smoothly.

Read the "How to Write Funny" series by Scott Dikkers. Read previous volumes of Eggplant Emoji to get a sense of what we are looking for.

Read a lot. Write a lot. Practice and critique! You don't attain high levels of writing without a healthy diet of all the above.

Challenge yourself! We want to read engaging stories that aren’t afraid to put a spin on rules of craft, spit in the eye of convention, and provoke in ways that surprise, challenge or enchant. We want experiences that we can bring into our daily lives, maybe even change our perspective. We want stories that play with form, that appeal to the senses, that make us think or that scare us. We also want work that uses the online format to its advantage--if you can put it on a webpage, we'd like to see it.

Share honestly of yourself - genuineness bleeds through your works like honey. Good editing and the work of writers' groups are invaluable. And oh! Don't let your word processing program auto-capitalize every first line of your poetry - it's maddening to have arbitrary capitalized words in the middle of poetic sentences. Basically, control form to convey meaning.

Be bold, be frank and always consider depth of authorial intent. We want to hear about your niche cultural experiences or even your multilingual musings. Send us writing that you've struggled to get published or writing that was deemed too bold in the western literary world because Fahmidan is global and driven by true Diversity in Action.

Read the submission guidelines well. If anything in your story is on our "What not to send" section: do not send it.
Additionally, dragons are a hard sell as are stories that rely heavily on what could be termed non-vegan content (a lot of casually using or consuming animal products). Lastly, please do not send us stories where people are on cell phones, computers, etc. We would prefer stories with a technology leavel around the mid to late 1800s. As such, sci-fi is often harder to make work and fantasy is often easier.

Read the latest issues of the FictionWeek Literary Review. Be aware that the FictionWeek Literary Review is produced by the all-volunteer group, and that we do not charge any fees.

Read what we've published. Read our guidelines. Think about what might stop someone in the middle of their busy day and challenge, inspire, surprise, delight. It's hard to get people to stop for poetry and art when bills are due and other matters occupy their mind. Also, send us your best work. Our acceptance rate is very low, since we only publish sixteen to twenty pieces a year.

We're looking for two main things: a high degree of surreality and a high degree of linguistic consciousness. What I mean by the latter is the idea of pairing words together for their visual and phonetic wonder.
There are two essays that can provide further clarification. Here's one by Gariell Lutz: https://www.thebeliever.net/the-sentence-is-a-lonely-place/
And one by Paul West: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/15/books/in-defense-of-purple-prose.html

Try and find the actual audience for your book and tell me who that is in the cover letter. It can be something like, "Fans of x will like this." Or, "I share an audience with x," if you already have published works and you know have some crossover with another author. It doesn't matter if the other author is famous or not--just understanding who your audience is is so important. I will automatically spend more time with those submissions.

Read the latest issues and contact me. I think that you cannot submit poetry or fiction without knowing where you go first; can you?

The simplest, and best, advice would be to familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines. Being aware of the word limits, maximum submissions, email header preferences, and other information listed on our submission page goes a long way.

Please do read past issues as well as the guidelines. Then you be you!

Please read some of what we publish.
Send us your best writing and recognize we may insist on some gentle editing.
Do not send us work imploring readers to believe what you believe.

We want work with strong personality and an original idea of beauty. If your stuff sounds like a million other stories, we may not be the magazine for you.

Please buy one of our books first, at least read something by one of our authors.

Of course, send us your best writing. Beyond that, we want lively, engaging, original work that represents the best of you. Though we understand that there is a place for experimental work, we look for accessible writing that is nonetheless nuanced as it explores the human condition. Though we have a leaning toward Boomer writing, we do not publish nostalgia pieces and are always on the lookout for fresh writing from anyone of any age.

Do it! The fact is, we don’t know what we want to publish until we read it. That said, read what we’ve published up until now to get a bit of an idea what we’re after. Submitted work doesn’t need to be nature writing (in fact, we wish we received more nature writing), but there should at minimum be an inherent fascination with the chance to be alive and breathing at a certain time at a certain place.

Be kind in your email, but don't worry about sounding overly artsy or formal. Make capturing an honest experience or feeling your priority in the work you submit.

Read the submission guidelines - they are there to make the submission process go smoothly for both you and us.
Suburban Witchcraft is what we describe as 'state of the soul', a moment on the intersection of our real world, your dreams and feelings, moments that feel surreal, improbable, painstakingly beautiful or painful when one does not expect them to be, and most of all it is Creativity as a form of existing when the world feels very scary and liminal. Our magazine's name often makes contributors think it is about practical and religious witchcraft, and it can be - but the emphasis is on expression and literary craftsmanship - there is no need for contributors to try and fit a non-existent theme.
Please feel free to TALK about your work - we welcome cover letters that include lore about your submission.
We welcome and celebrate self-published creators and we believe a creative work should never be deemed as 'old' or forgotten - do not shy away from submitting work from your self-published collections.
No need to be excessively formal when addressing the editor; all we ask is Be Kind.

Make sure somebody else has read your work — and that you’ve taken their notes to heart and revised accordingly.

It goes without saying that reading what a journal publishes will give you a good idea of the kind of work they like. Additionally, work that has been thoughtfully reviewed, revised and edited stands a stronger chance of making the cut. Get a friend to read through your work before you submit to avoid it being passed over because of poor editing.

Please understand that we only publish a tiny number of books each year, and most of those are by established authors such as Lawrence Block or Donald Westlake or Erle Stanley Gardner or Max Allan Collins (to name just a few of our more prolific contributors), which means we usually only have one slot available each year for a new or newish author -- and more than 1,000 submissions competing for that one slot. That means we have to say no well over 99% of the time, so a no from us is far, far, FAR more likely than a yes. As long as you know that going in, there's no harm in trying, but please do understand that we're a nearly impossible market to crack.

Read. Guidelines. Thoroughly.
Also: take real care to look at the author list we cite. Do you know most of the names, or just a couple? Have you read my (C.E. Hoffman's) work? All these will be very strong clues as to whether or not you're picking up what we're putting down.

Stories sent to us should instill in the reader the same kind of wonder experienced by all of us reading speculative fiction for the first time. Whether it's a robotic quandary, a monstrous creature, a clownish anomaly, or just plain weird, we want to see things that spark what was sparked in us.
Oh and don't send us erotic materials anymore please. Your mother reads us.

Read our guidelines carefully and preview the previous issue on our website for an idea of what we like to read.

READ OUR GUIDELINES! PROOFREAD YOUR WORK!

read material in back issues and submission guidelines so you know what we're looking for.

Don't be scared, don't self-reject, you'll never know if you don't try.

Don't overdo your bio. Short, concise and funny helps. We really don't care how often a person has been published before or how big the publication was.

Consider buying a sample issue to get a feel for the publication. Start your action / conflict from the first paragraph on. Too often the story doesn't begin until page 3 or 4, and by then, you've lost your reader. I love zombies, mummies, and a new twist on vampires.

I like to tell those who ask that the reason I started Annulet in part was because during the pandemic, I missed asking people at dinner, or at the bar, about their literary interests, because that's where you'd hear their most authentic opinions and answers. That's the starting point I imagine one could take for undertaking an essay or review for Annulet. My other advice stands not just for Annulet, but in general: after you've read 10-15 (minimum!) pieces that the journal's published, or if in print, at least two print issues (yep!), think of between 3-5 qualifiers that describe the nature, genre, mood, or some other outstanding feature (not quality, just most noticeable to you) of the work that you've read. Then ask yourself which pieces of your work, if any, might appeal to either the aesthetic tradition the journal plays into (particularly if it's a periodical with rotating staff), or might join the same conga line (sorry, maybe I mean hang out in the same place) as what you've read. It's delicate hedging, I know! But don't be intimidated by that. And further, that doesn't mean don't send something from left-field, particularly if the journal is one like Annulet that values the outsider, experimental, or singular—in that case, you should send it. I know there are some common notes that secretly appeal to me, and that specifically includes work by writers from the rural U.S. southeast, and historically-oriented poetry—but definitely not the sentimental or mythos-making versions of either of these.

Regardless of form or subject matter, send us work that connects with a wide range of readers.

Send us the weird stuff. Send us your favorite pieces. Send us the stuff that's been rejected over and over by other magazines. Send us the stuff that doesn't fit in.

Send us your best and be patient, as we don't accept simultaneous submissions, so we need to know that you submitted work only to us and have tried to adhere to our aesthetic guidelines.

If you're not sure if you should submit, we're here to tell you that you should :) We love reading and are always excited for more, so all we want to know is that you love your piece, after that it's a joy for us to experience your writing, so let's see what you've got!

We want to hear your voice, your complex, messy human voice, in our ears as we lean back. Then we want to be pushed. We read for that moment of flight, where we have no idea where we are going, but trust the hand on our backs pushing higher. NUTS AND BOLTS: Keep an eye on our open reading periods. Follow our guidelines. And be patient, as we're still new and finding our sea legs.

Try to write something that hasn't already been written, and try to write something that someone else will want to read. May seem like flippant advice, but I don't mean it that way.

Read Big Other. If you see yourself there, within that enduring autonomous zone, send us your literary art.

Just do it. You really have nothing to lose. Its one of the best ways to improve on your abilities.
Never hesitate to reach out and ask to have the submission fee waived.

We like to publish work that highlights where mainstream literature, pop culture, and experimental writing meet. Write different. Please look at our site to get an idea of what we publish. We're aiming for new readers so we prefer new forms of writing or writing that reflect pop culture.

We ask that authors interested in submitting work to Midway spend some time with the back issues to get a good feel for the type of work we are willing to consider.

Get feedback on what you write before you submit it, and make sure to accept or reject any track changes. Every week we have a piece that includes track changes!

First of all, read our submission guidelines - there aren't many of them, so we especially appreciate it if you follow them. Second of all, submit the work that best describes you, makes you unique, and stands out. We want to see how You can become the voice of the next generation of artists!

Mythaxis Magazine is free to read, so I suggest authors start with that - and once they've seen what we've published in the past, show us something different.
In addition, submission filenames that begin with the full title of the story are much preferred, as this makes administration of the slush pile vastly easier. Attachments called "Story title - Author Name" are perfect, although the author's name isn't necessary; any other variation just makes them harder to find in an alphebetised slush folder.

Look at the Fictive Dream website, read some of the stories to get a feel for our eclectic tastes. We favour contemporary fiction that explores the human condition, and those moments that change people's lives—good and bad. Think about the story you would like to submit. Is it well-crafted? Does it offer an original treatment of the subject matter? Is it authentic, that is to say, is the fictive dream maintained throughout? Is the writing confident and natural? Is the language precise? This is the type of submission we aim to attract.

Intentionality is key. We're fans of "pantsing" first drafts as a creative process, but when a submission feels pantsed, it means the writer hasn't brought enough intentionality into their editorial process. In other words, the characters need to drive the plot because of who they are and what they would do in a given situation, not because of the author's whim, and the plot's structure needs to serve the reader's experience. All elements should work together in literary harmony, and that generally not a hallmark of "as it occurred to me" composition. Keep the two pillars of storytelling in mind--first, immersion is the quality of a narrative that transports readers into the story world (and keeps them there); second, emotional draw is what keeps readers engaged, anticipatory, and eagerly turning pages. Bring intentionality to these two pillars--on every page!

Tell the untold story or give us the neglected angle. And tell your story concisely.

The best advice I can give is follow directions for submission. It would be a shame if a writer got a rejection due to not realizing there is a theme or not following the word count limit. Take the time to read our requirements please.

Never just submit! Be wary. Read your work again, revise one last time. But then capriciously throw in something new, some spangle. Don't revise, don't reread. Be trusting. Just submit!

Please follow the guidelines. And send us magic.

As a general rule, we're looking for work that does something new. If your story or poem covers well-trod territory, we want to see it treated in a new way, or with the kind of emotional intensity and powerful language that compels us to keep reading. We're unlikely to publish a standard relationship story or love poem, for example, unless it puts a twist on the familiar tropes or really packs an emotional punch. We also don't get as much creative non-fiction as we'd like--some issues we end up not publishing any, and we'd love to change that!

The Wise Owl Team prides itself in giving everyone an equal shot at publication, based solely on the quality of their work. We favour originality, freshness, innovation and novelty and would encourage our contributors to adhere to our norms. That is not to say we turn up our noses at traditional works. Well-written quality pieces are always welcome.
The Wise Owl welcomes submissions of hitherto unpublished poetry, Fiction (Short Stories), Non-Fiction (Essays, memoirs, travelogues, Reviews (Books/Films/TV Series/OTT releases). To have the best chance of being accepted by our Editorial team, please take a few minutes to read our Guidelines before you submit. Submit your contributions to [email protected]

Read through some of our recently published pieces to get a sense of the kinds of things we publish.

Read the work published at the Whiskey.
And remember just because you mention whiskey, in your work doesn't mean it is getting in.
I love poems to tell some sort of story and if I truly cannot grasp what it is your saying it probaly will not get in.
We are a pro drinking crowd work can truly be about anything if I dig it then I publish it.
There truly is no formula.
Read folks who have been published there often and please get I am the editor. This mag was created and is ran by me and I am only one person so remember if it takes awhile to get back to you it is not personal I run several mags and it's all me doing so .

Do not submit work that is neither about, or from, Delaware, or about how Delaware authors and poets have played a role in Delaware's literary history.

Knowing what publication you're submitting to can go a long way. While I wouldn't say it's a requirement to read our previous issues before submitting to us, I do recommend at least getting familiar with the theme of our current submission call, as we do consider adherence to the theme in our decisions. And I feel like it goes without saying that you should read the submission requirements of any publication before you send your work to it.

Read our previous issues to get a sense of the work we like. Please read our guidelines. If you are declined during the submission process, though rejection is tough, we highly recommend sending us work during the next submission period!

Read what we've published, and send us your best.

Do everything you can to learn the etiquette and processes of the literary publishing world. A tall order, no doubt! But by submitting, you're joining a community of thousands upon thousands of people who love writing and are trying to share their art with the world. The better we understand each other, the better we get along, the better these processes will work for everyone.

Read your work out loud before submitting it. Often, hearing the work will catch what reading doesn't, whether its rhythm, dialogue, or the sentence structure.

Read a couple of issues before submitting so you will have a sense of what we're looking for. Read a lot of mystery short stories so that you know what's been overdone. Avoid clichés. Crime fiction is as much about character as it is about the crime. We look for character-driven plots and well-written prose.

Please read and then follow our submissions policy as best you can. You risk a prompt decline if you don't. We will think it's rude of you if you have obviously not read our policies. It's great if you have pets or interesting weekend hobbies but we are not interested in them. Our passion is writing.

I'm most interested in seeing how art can inspire, inform, renew, and change a person's thinking and writing. Go with it. See where it can take you. Don't be too heavy handed about describing an art work, unless it comes naturally to the piece. We want to expand our fiction and especially love flash and micro. The Ekphrastic Review grew organically into a poetry-heavy publication, because I am passionate about poetry and because the submissions of poetry have been outstanding. But it was also founded with hopes for expanding the world of literary art writing. In my opinion, most writing about art today is pretentious, academic grandstanding or theoretical inanity. We've lost ways for ordinary people to engage with visual art in a contemplative, curious way through writing. I'm seeking beautiful, provocative, surprising insights stirred by paintings and other art. Literary, poetic, creative nonfiction if you will. If it is good writing and doesn't fit into other publications about art, try us. We aren't the right destination for academic essays about art- we want the writing itself to shine as much as the information it addresses.
We want more translations! We are interested in reading ekphrastic writing from all over the world. If you are able to translate that work into English for us from another language, the chances are very high we will choose your submission. (You must have permission of the poet you are translating into English to run their work, if selected, and share their bio with us as well, unless the work is in the public domain.)

Forsake all and follow the divine tyranny of art.

Well, we hope you'll read LEON before submitting. And please send us the work that you love.

Don't panic. We're pretty friendly! If we don't take your story, we may share a bit as to why and never do so in an insulting manner. Some things don't work for our readership, some don't work for our editors, and some pieces need just a little work, and we're willing to reconsider with edits. We're truly open to all forms of speculative fiction. We do tend to print darker work as the original intent of the website was horror before we grew to all forms of speculative fiction but we do feel that a good story is worth being told and we love to take a look at it all!

Please don't send more material than the length of the journal (16 tabloid pages.)Don't use language that leans towards the flowery and trite. Check your spelling and grammar before submitting and submit poetry that is legible. Please only send 6 poems per 6 month period, sending more will not help you. It helps to read previous issues as we may not want to print similar themes and styles in the next issue. Please include a SASE.

Put us there

Submit it.

Do what you do; trust in your own voice; find the world in your writing. We may take some time to get back to you, but know that we read with attention and care.

Please follow our guidelines and submit your best work. Our staff is unpaid, busy students who do this because they love it, and some common courtesy goes a long way.

We are seeking poetry and prose that celebrate, unsettle, and question our lives in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas (DMV) and our nation. We seek lyrical and dynamic work and believe in cultivating a diverse and inclusive environment of content, form, risk, and experimentation. New perspectives and voices with craft and fierceness are strongly encouraged to submit.

To read our journal, to read as many other journals as possible, and then to read the submission instructions.
Send us your best work, and a variety.

Read an issue first. Past issues are archived on our website.

Always query first to ensure our submission guidelines haven't changed, and let us know the genre, page count of what you plan to submit and of course a cover letter with bio/curriculum

Proofread. Send your best work.

Focus on linking your story to the current issue—even if it’s a piece you’ve already written, consider tweaking it to strengthen its connection. With that said, also actually read the current issue of the magazine and the submission guidelines. I receive a number of good stories without any readily visible echo of the current issue, so they don’t really meet the submission guidelines and end up getting rejected.

As always, look at the stuff we've published. If you have a piece that you feel strongly is good but isn't landing at less experimental journals, it might be up our alley.

Read our volumes and send us whatever is in your heart right now.

No matter what your final word count, the story should start right away. Leading with world building, background, or quotes (real or imagined) is a good way to lose me in the first few pages.

We latch onto novel language and images, skilled awareness of sound, visceral reactions. We love a lyric poem and are equally impressed by strong narratives. We want to remember your lines, days later. We want to be surprised and envious.

Do it! We look forward to seeing your best work in dialogue with our theme.

Definitely check out our previous issues. We accept all kinds of writing and art, but it needs to be about, set in, or reflective of this beautiful area.

Check out our previous publications, even if it's just by scrolling through the books on our website. If you see books that you feel resonate with yours, in terms of audience or style or subject, we'd love to take a look at your work. If your book is radically different than what we publish, though, spare yourself a little heartache.

Read the work already published on the site and feel free to query us if you're uncertain whether a piece suits our guidelines. (For example, we don't publish straightforward scholarly essays on eco topics, but are open to hybrid work with a scholarly underpinning!)

Read previous issues to get an idea of what we publish.

Read our guidelines. They're not weird or stringent but they're important. We don't want to disqualify submissions for avoidable things, like sending a 2,000 word story to a flash contest.
Read our magazine for a sense of our aesthetic, but also know that we're constantly looking for something we've never seen before.

Give us your best shot with the submission - be clear when you tell us what your book is about, and give us a sample that really shines. This may not be the first chapter - if it's chapter thirty-three, we know that there will be things we don't understand. We're looking at the writing, not the plot. We'll look more deeply at the work if we ask to see the whole thing. That's really the only goal of a submission - to get us to want to read more.

Do not send in incomplete stories. People often send in a well described scene, but it isn't a complete story. Beginning, middle, end is needed. Twilight Zone style is always a winner. Put a twist or aha or oh man moment in the end. Remember to twist the knife. Poetry should have vivid imagery and haunting emotion.

Read the publication. Don't call us AMC.

The best thing to do is read the guidelines. Reading a previous issue of the magazine can help, but the guidelines are pretty specific about what we want.

Here are my key points that everyone should know about entering this contest:
1) We are looking for speculative fiction short stories and flash fiction is OK too. Science fiction, fantasy, light horror is what we mean by speculative fiction. Art should be science fiction or fantasy-themed.
2) Don't submit an overused trope. We are looking for original ideas well written on the writer side. On the illustrator side we are looking for illustrations, not cartoon drawings and not someone else's work please (we catch plagiarism every time).
3) You can enter every quarter until you win and should enter as often as you can. Our quarters are: Q1 -- 1 October through 31 December, Q2 -- 1 January through 31 March, Q3 -- 1 April through 30 June, Q4 1 July through 30 September.
4) Read the rules before you submit your story or your art so that your format is correct.
5) Do not send us a story that has been previously published anywhere.

We no longer fancy the generic, so send us something artistically fresh—of course, not forgetting the fiery ambience.

We love to see work from people with a wide range of abilities and backgrounds. You don't have to be a professional artist or writer to submit work to us! The beauty of zine-making is that is truly can be whatever you want it to be, in all your DIY cut-and-paste glory!

Read our wee journal.
Check your grammar/usage.
Send us beautiful language.
We’re looking for poetry that plumbs the strange and beautiful, surprises us with new perspectives of what language does, and overwhelms us with Duende. Traditional form or wildly experimental, blank verse or free, we want you to woo us within an inch of our lives.
We aim to publish the best writing from the Delmarva Peninsula and beyond. We are interested in local and regional perspectives on climate change and its impacts and intersections. We are interested in queer, and BIPOC voices. We are interested in reading translated work from around the globe.
We publish ten-minute plays. We publish one-act plays. We publish reviews. We publish micro-reviews. Query [email protected] or submit via our fiction portal on the submissions page.

Think outside the established page. Since we are a speculative journal you have the entire cosmos to utilize in your story. We love big ideas and big stakes, even if those stakes are internal. If there's a revolution brewing in your mind then let it out and submit! Always be passionate in your writing because that is what we want most of all: to deeply feel.

I know this sounds overly obvious, but read the guidelines, and especially read what stories we've published in the past. Every story we've published in available for free in our archives, and because they're flash-fiction, they don't take long to read. I'm not saying you should be able to name your five favorite stories we've published, but a little bit of familiarity with our past publications is the best way to see what kinds of stories we prefer, to know that Orion's Belt style. Other than that, I recommend you think about our love of polished, lyrical prose when you're deciding whether to submit here, or what pieces of yours to submit. How a story is written is as important for us as its plot points. Elevated yet concise prose, with real attention paid to diction, syntax, and tone, is catnip to me. I love reading stories where a lot of time has clearly been spent on every word and sentence.

To embrace the criteria, allowing them to act as prompts rather than restrictions.

Listen to the Kaidankai podcast. There are really short episodes and longer ones, but you get a sense of what is possible by listening to a few episodes.
And edit before sending. Sometimes, I see great stories that are just not quite ready for publication.

FICTION: I buy a lot of fiction that runs less than 5,000 words, so your best chance of breaking in is with your shorter work. And I prefer flash that's really short, too—we'll look at work up to 1,500 words, but I really like flash that runs less than 1,000, because it's so much more fun. I'm particularly keen on unusual forms in flash fiction, too. As for longer work, I'd say that prose is very important, but not as important as a sense of character. The emphasis at Nightmare is very much on character-centered fiction.
NONFICTION: We get a lot of nonfiction submissions that are miniature book reports or informational articles, but what I'm looking for is work that focuses on the personal and emotional experience of the dark side.
POETRY: Please note that we have very limited formatting options; we can't include works with a variety of line indentations, for example. So we're not a great market for people who love to play with the visual form of their poems.

Write the very best piece you can possibly write, have someone else carefully proofread it, and follow the submission guidelines to the letter. It's such a shame when I get submissions with Word track changes comments in the margins, or loaded with typos and errors of grammar. Put your best foot forward to give your work a real opportunity to shine.

Be true to yourself, re-edit it, and read it out loud to yourself. Don't blame the story, don't let it go unless it's not really working but save some good time to editing. Most of the time, a story fails because it is just not ready yet. I know, it's so hard to understand but if your story is not selected by a few competitions, and magazines, it's a good idea to re-edit it.
And sometimes, just sent it over to take your chance because you never know!

Read what we've published before, in print or digital and on our Editors' Blog, take our guidelines seriously because we've thought carefully about conveying to you the quality of work we'll publish.

Dare to make hitting the SUBMIT button an act of soul retrieval and social justice; however you define fear use its powerful alchemy to send LEJ material that transforms those who interact with your submission.

Read and follow the guidelines for every submission. The open calls have different requirements for different reasons. You are wasting your time if you send me a 40-line poem for a call with a maximum of 15 lines, or a fiction piece to the nonfiction contest. Your submission might get lost if you send it by email instead of through the submission form. I do my best to keep track of everything. The guidelines exist to help me give every submission its due diligence.
On a content note, try to write something thematically different from what others are writing. I get a lot of stories and poems about people murdering their spouses, or elderly people dying peacefully to join their already deceased partner. Switch up the setting too. I see a lot of buses and coffee shops and universities (these settings can be fascinating, but only if you make them so). Place your characters in a temp agency or on an airplane or in the driver's seat of a snowplow. Place them in a circus or a call center or a king's antechamber. Place them in historical settings and contemporary settings in various global regions. The fresher your story, the more it will stand out from the two hundred others coming in.

Read through our previous issues to get a feel for the kind of work we like to publish. However, keep in mind that our preferred styles and tastes change with new additions to the editorial staff every year. So, rather than conform to the work you already see online, send us something that we haven't seen before. Take risks, as we're far more likely to publish that than something that is safe and traditional.

Read our magazine and get a feel for FFM before sending something our way. We reach a large audience and publish a variety of genres. Don't be afraid to give us something we haven't seen before, but make sure there's a firm narrative arc, the prose is tight and the descriptions are vivid. And, I'm going to say most importantly, please read the guidelines and follow them.

For fiction writers, tell a compelling story, one which grips the reader from the first paragraph and entertains throughout. Do the research. Don't decorate your character or setting with arms, clothing or features which were not there until after the time your story is set in.
For non-fiction articles, keep it conversational and informative and check your facts.

First read our About page and try to think beyond the usual.

Read at least one copy of the magazine.

Everyone says this, but please read something from our archives. We favor interesting, voice-driven work over polished but ultimately boring work. Our editors are willing to take risks and we love discovering new voices. Oh, and proofread, proofread, proofread. A couple of typos won't make or break a submission, but we want to see that you've read and revised with care.

Read our Writer's Guidelines! Seriously. They are there to help you send in the best submission possible. Oh, and follow the guidelines. You'd be surprised how many people don't. Following that, the best thing to do is read The Rumpus. There is no better way to understand what we like to publish than to read what we've recently been publishing. And please, send a piece in only once you feel it is the final draft. And never be afraid to submit! The worst you'll get is a polite rejection note, and sometimes, we may reject a piece but encourage the author to submit again. Once you've made sure you are following our guidelines and are submitting to the correct section, go ahead and press "submit"!

Please read an issue first! Get to know the publication. While we are an Italian-American journal, we will not publish work based on tired old stereotypes and tropes. There is more to IA writing than your trip to Florence or your grandmother's spaghetti. Craft first!

If you've never published a book before, we highly recommend hiring a developmental editor before submitting your work. For those who are more familiar with the process and standards, we recommend familiarizing yourself with the work we've already published.

The best advice I can give is to be authentic, vulnerable, and true to your own passion and experience. We love art that touches our souls and opens our mind to a new perspective.

The same advice other editors give: read! Read as much work as you can, not only in TWR but in other journals, too.

Complete the thought. It's damned hard to get an emotion or idea across in a hundred words, and too often we receive good but fragmentary writing.

For writers wishing to enter our competitions I have plenty of advice, including, believe it or not: Pay attention to grammar and punctuation.
But for us, choosing winners from a long list of equally valid stories, boils down to how much the story affected us. Did we read, holding our breath, swept along by the characters' thoughts, conflicts, inner turmoil? Did we read the last line and say: Wow!

Treat the attention of the reader as a precious resource.

Please review a few previous issues.
PROOFREAD.
No attachments.
Please incude a 3rd person brief biography.

Many writers include in their introductory email a note that informs me of how many times they've lost the Pushcart Prize and the Best-of-Net Prize. As an editor and a human, I really don't need to know how many prizes you've missed out on in your life. And to be totally honest, I really don't care how many prizes you've won or plan on winning. I want to know about your current writing state, and the audience you want to reach. Share your heart. Those letters give me a great reason to open your manuscript. When you tell me "I've been nominated 43 times for the Pushcart", you're telling me you're a loser and not encouraging me to open your manuscript to see how you're going to excite me today. You also are admitting rather loudly that your ego is more important than your manuscript. While it's not going to stop me from reading what you sent, you do need to know you've got that "strike against you" when I start reading. That's not really a happy place to be if you're looking for acceptance from an old curmudgeon. And, just so you know, I have been pleasantly surprised from time to time, and I have accepted work from folks who lost the Pushcart Prize 43 times. So, it's not 100% rejection. Just sort of a weird way to introduce yourself. What I want you to take away from this sermon is I am looking for writers who want to continue to write for our audience year after year. Writers who want to be a part of a literary family and are interested in having consistent readers who will learn to love their work and buy their book and talk about them with their friends, and support your literary career.

The best piece of advice would be to write something that builds the tension and dread slowly. I want a slow burn on the creep factor. Bonus points if it is well-done cosmic horror as I am a big fan of the cosmic. If you submit something that is cosmic, set in a rural location, and gets creepier with each page, then there is a good chance I will ask for a full manuscript.

Creative writing is the most important element of our life as it helps us understand and appreciate the world around us. We strongly recommend to our submitters, 'Don't rush your writing in order to meet the deadlines'. Give all your time in the world to your writing and learn how to be patient. Eventually, you will discover your work will not only get selected by publishers but also will be appreciated by the readers. This is also one of the most effective ways of producing great content.
Additionally, we expect our submitters to have a complete understanding of the theme of our contests. That's it. Write. Feel. Publish. Before submitting your work to us, we further ask you to take out your time to read our contest guidelines. This helps publishers like us to ease the judging process and further announce the winner and release the book at the earliest.

Read the stories that have won or received honorable mention in our competitions. Read them ALL if you can. They're published in our anthology series, "21st Century Ghost Stories," (Volumes I and II, so far) and the most recent ones are available on our website.

Please, please, please read both the full guidelines and the back issues. We get so many submissions that don't remotely match the aesthetic of the magazine and submitting works like that will only end in frustration for both editor and submitter. Many of these people clearly haven't read the full guidelines or any issues of the magazine and it's disheartening to have to send a rejection of a decent story that just doesn't at all fit.

I think the biggest issue we see is people recapping games that most of us know about already. I try to tell the writers that we don't really care about what happened at games, we care about the writer and what they experienced. The more personal a poem or essay can get, the better. With fiction, we are always looking for ways to be surprised, aspects of the game that maybe we haven't thought about and how that can tell a story. I think the best pieces aren't really about baseball, but use baseball to tell a larger story.

We love to review vibrant, exciting, wild pieces from new voices. No matter your medium, the staff at Reed Magazine wants to hear your stories.

Cavar: As all editors tend to say: read the magazine! Beyond that? Simply read, this is absolutely crucial if you want to improve your craft. We also recommend going through at least three rounds of revisions to each piece before submitting it anywhere, not just to us –– we're not equipped to work on your piece if it's still in draft form.

Find out what scares you most and write it. Don't be afraid to take risks. And commit. Follow through until the end, even if it hurts. The worst thing you can do is set a beautifully terrifying stage, then be in a rush to wrap it up.

Don't be afraid to submit what you normally probably wouldn't. If you think it is weird or experimental or has too much white space, send it anyway. We just want to feel what you are trying to say.

Make sure you know what we are about. Read our books, see if you like them. If you do, you might fit in with us.

Be original. If your heart is broken don’t break mine by submitting unoriginal material.

--Read our submission guidelines--not only for our contest but for submission to Bethlehem Writers Roundtable. Our regular submissions page tells you what we are looking for in a story.
--Don't write the first thing that comes to mind when you learn about our theme. Chances are it's the first thing to come to other authors' minds as well.
--Use an original title. If we get several stories with titles that simply restate our theme, we will have a hard time separating them in our judging.
--We look for the elements of good story-telling: engaging characters, conflict, resolution. We prefer showing to telling, and love it if you can tell a complete story in an original way.
--Be mindful of grammar and punctuation. Pet peeves: don't say laying when you mean lying. Don't use "I" when you should say "me" (except, perhaps, in dialogue). We have mixed-up words in every issue of Roundtable--and those from past issues in our archives. --Remember what Mark Twain said about using the right word: “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter – it is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug .”
--Don't send it in until you've taken the time to edit it carefully. Our contest is open for the first three months of each year, so you have some time to get it right.

Besides identifying in some way on the women end of the gender spectrum, make sure you have thoroughly proofread your stories. Typos, grammar errors, inconsistent use of the semi-colon, all of these things make it look like you don't care about your story. If you don't care about it, neither will an editor.

For the press, we love strange and experimental works, but also works that deal with SFF tropes in new ways. For the magazine, we're seeking essays on any speculative genre from horror to fantasy to science fiction in books, movies, comics, and games.

Just do it. Don't worry about rejection. It's hardly ever because work is "bad." Rejections for us happen because we only have so many spaces to fill. So when we have five open slots for grief stories and get 125 submissions, rejection is going to happen. But don't let that stop you from telling your story.

It needs to be Sherlock Holmes. Please follow the submission guidelines carefully.

Read the guidelines closely — they matter.

Love it. Really put the time into your writing to not only tell a story but demonstrate your understanding of that story. Nothing turns a reader away like a sense that they can't trust the writer. We want writers who are passionate about what they write, who have something to say and have gathered all the right words to say it. We love work in particular that makes us feel or makes us wonder or makes us shiver. Most of the time, when we don't accept a story, it's because we just didn't feel the piece was ready yet.

Make your writing as clean as possible. Check the spelling and grammar. Convey a powerful message without excess verbiage. Read Raymond Carver, who advised: "Get in. Get out. Don't linger. Go on."

Just be real and share your story about motherhood and being a mom - whether you're a teen mom, a first time mom, a grandmom, a middle-aged mom, a working mom, a stay-at-home mom. We don't accept material that attempts to direct or tell other moms how to parent and no politics. And PLEASE, proofread your work before submitting.

Feel free to break the rules of genre. Write, write, and write. We would love to hear your unique voice.

Read our tips in Writing Advice. Read your piece out loud to see if you catch glitches a first-time reader will see.

Don't be afraid to put your heart in it!

Don't be shy.

Please take a look at a print issue (PDF copies are also available) and at the work we feature online, to get an idea of our range. It's very important that prospective contributors read our call for submissions. We generally alternate between “un-themed” issues, in which any work on motherhood is sought, and themed issues, in which we’re looking for work that engages with a theme in addition to being about motherhood.

So, for example, our current theme is “Mother Figures” and here we’re seeking work that explores icons and archetypes of motherhood from history, religion, pop culture, movies and TV. We’re interested in work that investigates the virtues and values those icons embody, and compares those depictions to actual experiences of motherhood.

Read our site! Read all the other sites. Check out that list of authors we like. Scroll through our list of contributors. Stalk our readers and editors on social media. Don’t read anything. Live in the world. Live in your head. Stop thinking about living. Ask yourself if your work is something only you could make. Figure out who you’re ripping off and rip them off better. Mix your influences. Don’t worry about it too much. Send us what you’ve got.

As with all publications please read our guidelines. We want unpublished fiction approximately 50 words in length that relates to our theme. No poetry, attachments,
or bios please. Send us something fresh. If you have heard the story before, so have we. Save the vampires and zombies for publications who specialize in them. Same goes for sexual violence and pointless murder/torture. No thanks to sexism, racism, hatred, bigotry, and intolerance. Too much of these things in the real world already.
Ask first on artwork, it should relate to the theme, but we may keep it on file for a future issue. Everyone is welcome to drop us a note to say hello or ask a question.

Like most publications, we recommend perusing our journal's archive to see what we've published before. In particular, it's helpful to see what we've published most recently.

1. Your titles and openings are incredibly important. Spend extra time making these as good as they can be.
2. Always make sure you read some of our material before you submit, we have a vibe that we tend to stick to which can only be properly explained by reading the work on our site.
3. Be unexpected.

Make sure your work is carefully polished and revised. Competition is stiff, and if your manuscript shows that you took special care to make it as polished, cohesive, and satisfying as possible, editors will trust you and take note of it.

Pay attention to Submission guidelines! We publish three times a year, and welcome both emerging and experienced writers from around the world.

Don't feel the need to contain your work to what the market thinks of as "women's topics." Women's topics are anything that women choose to write about! We receive a lot of work on Persephone, menstruation, breast cancer, caretaking, abortion, and childbirth, and we love them, but we are interested in receiving the full of gamut of work by women, not just the niche that people think of when they imagine "women's issues."

Write, redraft, proofread. If you are not a native speaker, take extra time to proofread.
Don't try to be original when it comes to formatting the piece.
Read the guidelines.

Send us works with strong voices and themes. Your writing must show us why your topic matters.

Read the Submissions page first.
Don't be hasty by submitting as soon as you've finished the first draft. Submit the final, polished version of your story.
"Be warned", he said. "frequent grammatical errors is a sure way to annoy me" - AAAGH!

First of all, don’t think that your work has to elaborate on your mental illness in order to grab our attention. Many writers and poets who we publish write about subjects that are distant from their personal experience with mental illness. We do, however, encourage a writer or a poet to at least mention their story of mental illness in a cover letter, and if accepted, we ask that their relationship with mental illness be at least mentioned in the biography which we publish with their work. We encourage potential writers and poets to read our submission guidelines to gain a solid idea of how we prefer their work to be submitted. Most of all, know that The Awakenings Review is a place where your experience with mental illness can be shared and understood by editors who have been through the same turmoil, and a readership that is concerned and sympathetic.

Send us your best stuff. Don't worry about themes, genres or content: quality alone is what counts. Each year we receive far more good material than we can hope to publish, so make sure that what you send us is your very best work. On a practical note, set it in a standard typeface (if in doubt, Times New Roman) at a sane size (12 point is fine), and give decent margins and line spacing. You are welcome to experiment with layout but remember: in the printed book, your work will have to fit into a type area of 100mm x 184mm and still be legible! Put the title of the piece on every page, but only put your name on the covering letter; our editors make their selections without knowing the names of the writers they're selecting.

We want work engaging Christian theology and the Christian life. This doesn't mean that every piece must be theological, but it should in some way interact with the Christian life, i.e., the trials and triumphs of daily life with God.

Read previous issues of The Phare. It’s the only way you’ll get a feel for the type of writing we love to publish. Also, be brave – we like to read the unexpected.

We're always happy to consider review, interview and fiction proposals, but are a no-income not-for-profit and cannot pay a fee.

Try for arresting premises, colorful language, and some narrative direction. And as so many other magazines advise, read a few issues to get a sense of what we publish.

Writers are accustomed to hearing this advice, perhaps even tired of it, but it’s important: read the magazine. Not doing so, and submitting something that is a bad fit with the publication to which you’re submitting, simply wastes the effort you’ve taken with the piece.

SAND receives thousands of submissions each year, and we are highly selective. We only publish 1-2% of the submissions we receive. Therefore, submitters should be sure that their work is a fit for SAND. Read SAND and see what we've published recently, or click on the links in our call for submissions and read about what our current editors are looking for. Follow our social media and check out our YouTube channel to see what we’ve previously published. It'll give you an idea of the style of writing we're choosing but also show you where you can knock our socks off with something different and unusual.

Familiarize yourself with our journal. Strive for that elusive balance of power, restraint, and concision. Be yourself. We like to showcase craft with meaning.

Always, always, ALWAYS read the guidelines to make sure you got the materials you need to submit to any literary magazine including Variety Pack. We have had way too many either submit to us before a reading period or after one, or to the wrong email. Sometimes we give leniency, but to be honest there it does get frustrating, because we don't want to leave someone's submission deleted and unread, but as our former poetry editor and good friend Julio Montalvo Valentin always advised me on whenever we first started this publication: "It hurts to ever have to ignore and delete someone's work, but we have a precedent, like any other journal, and the submission guidelines need to be followed." Another major advice I want to give to writers is take every acceptance and rejection letter you receive as motivation to improve your craft, especially rejection letters. I know that a rejection letter can be awful to get whether it’s by email or through a site like Submittable, but instead of seeing it as a sign of giving up, view this as encouragement to improve your craft. Play with words and different forms of writing no matter the genre. Let your voice speak through your work. Although our aesthetic is broad, and doesn't aim to please one particular, it always helps to also read what we've published too!

Look at the submissions requirements.
Please make sure that your submission is professionally done: double-spaced, 12 pica, a synopsis, final word count, and what you, as the author, bring to the table in terms of marketing.

Be original, be honest, be open, surprise us.

Take your time and turn in completed visions. It also helps to know the market in order to explain how your manuscript is exceptional among its peers.

We advise simultaneous submissions, since we can take so very few works.

Make sure your proofread your submission. Be open to constructive feedback from other artists. Keep in mind, they would not comment if they were not intrigued.
Explore the site content.

Read a couple of our issues is always the standard answer here, and while we recommend that, sometimes it’s best to just take a stab at it. We like stories and poems that evoke a strong emotional response in our readers, and we love stories that are multi-leveled—it’s got to say something and not just be entertaining.

Read our journal first! Then tell us something real.

Read previous issues, submission guidelines, and formatting standards. Stay within word count and on theme. Keep content relevant, nonoffensive, and avoid derogatory language. Most of all, formatting is a huge deciding factor in your acceptance.

read our magazine, & read everything. esp. work coming from europe, asia, the middle east, africa, latin america, australia, new zeeland, canada. keep it short. since we are printing in parallel text, lengths exponentiate. prose tends to be in 4 languages due to layout issues. a 1200 word pce winds up being 4800 words.
a 4800 word pce winds up being in another publication altogether or gets published by us as a standalone chapbook. (& hold on there, as we've only done that once.)
as for genre, be esp. careful with horror, & even s.f. those genre conventions, while fine for that genre, are just that: genre conventions. & genre conventions tend to be a sort of capt. midnight decoder ring. make sure that yr pce won't alienate readers who otherwise don't read genre. too many submissions are of a sub-h.p. lovecraft ilk, & paranoia in & of itself gets really tedious by the third or fourth paragraph. if you are going to do any suspense, study 19th c. writers like de maupassant. (& please don't what-about-stephen-king... if you read him you will know he breaks & bends those genre rules all the time, which is why he wound up getting an enormous readership very early in his particular game.) & as for fantasy, same thing. gossamer by itself gets thin, if not outright twee, by paragraph three or four.
best rules comes from ezra pound: make it new!
& from cocteau: astonish me!

1) Don’t send us horror—ever—or dark fantasy/speculative stories without a hopeful and redemptive ending. We have nothing against these genres but they don’t serve the CRES mission of high-vibe inducing reads and have zero chance of being chosen for publication by us.
2) Read our submission guidelines. In particular, pay attention to the file formats, lengths for submission, story formatting and what we publish and don’t publish.
3) Don’t send us your first or even second draft of a story. At least get someone else to read it before sending it in.
4) Ask yourself if the story is adding anything new to the genre (especially if it’s a fairy tale) and if this version is the best it can currently be. If you answer ‘yes’ to both questions then please submit your story to us.

Every poem is experimental whether by well-established writers or beginners, but make sure your 'experiments' are not made for the sake of breaking new ground.
Study writers you like and understand. Learn how they work and emulate what you absorb, but don't copy them. Our web site is full of ideas and examples. Include all your contact information, including email addresses, at the top of your submission. Have someone else proof-read everything you send.

Make sure it has a Christian theme. We're open to a lot of different types of writing, but if there is zero reference to anything about Christ, things of the Bible, or God, then it most likely won't get accepted.

We at Polyphony Lit have immense respect for the emerging writer who is at the beginning years of developing voice and craft. We urge young writers to consider the following:
1) Write with intent. We have a principle of respecting authorial intent. If the story you are burning to write is about the heartbreak of basketball season on paper, we respect that intent and our editors will respond to you with feedback on ways that you can best write that story. But be intentional about the precise goal of that work- the precise themes, tone, effect you want to leave with the reader.
2) Consider craft. As a student, we assume you are still learning craft, but consider the elements of the genre and be deliberate about how you put them to use. For example, for poetry, consider how you deploy imagery, sound, and structure in your work.
3) Precision. Be thoughtful about every word.
4) Proofread!!!

Always read the submission guidelines thoroughly, especially with respect to the word limit. Reading several already published pieces in your genre will also help you determine whether your work is right for us.

Write so to pull in your reader immediately, not with pure shock value alone, but by cracking into the true substance of the piece right away--the character's desire and struggles.

Give us the most authentic, genuine sense of you as a writer! We receive so many fantastic works of writing that demonstrate mastery of language or mirror the writing styles of certain authors, but we are most drawn toward those that share a unique perspective. This can be manifested in a variety of ways from experimental form or structure in poetry to fragmented narrative structures in fiction but we care about works that clearly showcase the author's passion for writing. When you pick topics or themes that resonate with your own lived experience or what fascinates your imagination, it shows.

Make sure your story begins in the middle of the action, you have introduced a protagonist who has a goal and someone or something is preventing them from achieving that goal (in other words, conflict). Have an inciting incident that forces your protagonist to act. Develop a unique tone/voice/writing style in the piece, bring in the setting which slowing the pace of the story, and make your dialogue realistic. Also proofread and copy edit your work before submitting.
For essays: make sure your piece introduces a premise, then supports that premise through examples.
For poetry, move us.

The best advice we can give someone who is considering submitting work is to first make sure one follows our submissions guidelines here: http://sinkingcitylitmag.com/submit/. We also strongly suggest that those who submit read our previous issues before sending in their work to get a better sense of what we publish!

Read the guidelines of course, here in Duotrope and on the award's website. If you meet the requirements, and you love writing science fiction and fantasy, you should consider submitting to us.

Read our pages, get a feel for what we like. Edit, edit, edit before sending.

Make sure the characters are full people. Show them through dialogue and clothing choices and hints of back-story.

Read what we've published. Proofread and spellcheck. ***Include your contact info IN the ms.*** Write about people, their passions, their conditions and circumstances, their peaks and valleys, their complexities and quirks, their confusion and clarity, their diverse sentiments, their desires and frustrations, and their transitions, transformations and transfigurations. We love that stuff. Write in a manner that illuminates, provokes, challenges, comforts, amuses, delights and rewards. We are not usually interested in work that is merely grammatically correct and technically well-written, but that doesn't transcend the cliches of the genre. This includes stories that transpose cliches of the fantastic into cliches of the mundane, e.g., another night on the job for the elf chief of police at the county jail for mythical perps, etc. AND YET: If your fantastical fable, yarn or tale is just plain awesome, regardless of cliche, we'll want to run it.

Consider if your work is saying something new or saying something in a new way. As per our mission guidelines, we seek out innovative storytelling, whether in content or in form. Also consider if your work is conscientious of any potentially problematic material that appears in your work.

For poetry: we admire messy syntax, complex effects, and poems that stand up to multiple readings, but prefer standard-ish punctuation
For essays: we want essays that read like failed poems—ones that circle a thesis, but are more interested in exploring the truth around it.
For fiction: something rich, complicated, and true, but something that doesn't lose sight of what makes us human.

Please read a fair amount of our recent published work before submitting and of course please peruse our submissions guidelines. We publish everything from whimsical reviews of lottery ticket scratchers to serious and sincere fiction, so while we don’t have a definable type of story we’re looking for, we do have a sensibility that you’ll only register by reading a chunk of our catalog.

As with any publisher, my best advice would be to please familiarize yourself with our content and submissions guidelines prior to submission.

It's said by every editor and publisher everywhere and I'm sure it's dismissed just as quickly - but don't dismiss it. Read a copy (or a sample copy) of our magazine - get an idea of the kinds of stories, poems, science articles we accept. A little preliminary research can never hurt. Second best advice is consider , does your story embody hope or positivity? If it does, you're on the right track and you should send it in.

Write well and with honesty. We tend to like stuff that is weird, eccentric, sweet, funny, intellectual, outlandish, depressing, twisted, freaky, sentimental, gritty, gorgeous, struggling with complexity... Basically, don’t be afraid, and don’t forget to engage with smell and/or taste!

Please read our submissions guidelines and do not send work to us by email or during our closed season. We do have a specific aesthetic and point of view, and it's helpful to have read a couple of recent issues to know what we're looking for. We often receive work that's very good but simply not within our wheelhouse.

We are excited by all genres and styles, and seek work that breaks our hearts and subverts our expectations.

Read the guidelines page and then let your imagination wander.

Read past issues and our anthology to see what we like. We generally prefer non-traditional writing so if you write rhyming, very formal stuff, it probably isn't for us. If however, you experiment with form, content, presentation, style, blends of styles and languages etc - please consider us!

Inhabit your own voice

Read our mission, read our books, follow our submissions guidelines

It's the same advice we'd give for any writer submitting to ANY journal: Read us! Buy a current or back issue, read what we've posted online, follow us on social media... you don't need to be published to become part of the RHINO community. Not only will you get to read some beautiful poetry, you'll gain an idea of what we're really looking for. We get thousands of submissions a year, and tailoring your submission can give you an edge in attracting the attention of our editors.

Tell a story with a first line that brings us down the rabbit hole and makes us never want to resurface. We also value non-generic titles.

Obviously, check out some of our back issues first! We don't do particular theme issues, and our aesthetic is pretty consistent. Also, although general submissions have no reading fee, consider entering a contest, if you're sending. We know, contests are controversial, but all paid entrants get a copy of the issue, which we hope is worth the $15. Many of our recent winners have been new writers, and it's even been a first publication for some. At the same time, many of our favorite works from each issue come in as general submissions and could easily be contest finalists, if entered. We're always glad to look at your free submissions, but if you have a potential contest contender, why not take a shot and help keep a lit mag afloat?

Please read the submission guidelines for each publication.

Please go through our articles and you will know what we publish and what we don't.

Please review our submission requirements carefully. We try to manage expectations as closely as we can. Also, because we work on a short timeline, we look for work that's finished and polished.

Your work has to speak for itself. We don't read bios until after we've read/viewed the piece, and they never make us change our minds. Many magazines tell you to read previous issues. We'd love for you to do that, since we believe in what we publish, but we also are completely open to whatever you submit--we don't check it against what we've published to see if it conforms to an arbitrary standard. If we laugh, cry, whatever--then it has a good chance. Finally, the work has to be something only you can create. Even when it's about common themes--love, death, sickness, addiction--it has to stay away from generalities to work.

Follow the guidelines! We have tried to clarify the language but are still seeing contributors disregard our instructions, which makes our work much more difficult. Then give us work that shows off your passion and your craft.

Follow our guidelines and send us your final drafts. Too often we find careless errors in otherwise interesting manuscripts.
Since approximately 40% of our content is solicited, only the most unique among the open submissions are offered an opportunity to edit for acceptance.

Stop sending us children's stories as we don't publish them!! Read the submission guidelines and as far as possible try to adhere to them - simply because it ensures a quicker response and we don't like to keep writers waiting

It's common advice, but it's important to read what we've already published (either online or in print). This will give you an idea of whether your work will fit in our magazine. Reading our guidelines is also critical. We judge blind so if we see a name on your submission we can't consider it. Finally, just because we allow for multiple submissions, that doesn't always benefit your submission. Choose your best work and send it to us. Less is, almost always, more.

Read the guidelines carefully. We publish every day and publish the best story submitted on that day. All things being equal we'll choose the one that is the most helpful to us. For instance today we had three equally enjoyable stories so we picked the one that was formatted correctly.

There is no dark side of the moon. In fact, it's all dark.

Find the driving force of your novel, and keep that throughout. This can be anything really – fairies, feminism, history, sword fights etc – but your passion should shine through your writing because if you care, the audience will care.

Please follow the submission guidelines closely. Be patient. Be kind. Do not take it personally if a submission isn't published. Raging on the editors never helps.

The same advice you get from every journal: read our issues. Spend time with us. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Get an idea of the flavor of the work we publish. Keep in mind that, with non-fiction, in particular, we are looking for creative non-fiction rather than academic work (though we do love a well-placed footnote).

Please make sure you were giggling maniacally when you wrote your story. We accept speculative humor. That means some elements of science fiction, fantasy, or horror needs to be present. Any mix of those is fine. Weird is encouraged. But it must be funny.
A legible format is also a plus, standard manuscript format (https://www.shunn.net/format/story.html) would be super cool, but not a requirement. Please, we beg you, at least use your grammar and spelling software before you send your submission. We edit but don't task us.

Send us your best work and don't sweat the rejections. (Like many journals, we accept less than one percent of the material we receive.) If you haven't heard from us in three months, by all means follow up. And DO submit to a couple of other journals at the same time--it's tough out there, and we are firmly behind the right of writers to simultaneously submit their work.

Read the magazine before submitting to avoid wasting time and energy.
Read widely. Finish your work before submission.

Let the theme swirl around in your head. Don't go for the obvious. Be creative.

Be sure to send your best work. Not everyone does. Not everyone sends work in a finished state. Since our move back from web publication to print publication the editorial bar for Southword is much higher. Submissions are rejected in the first instance by clumsy use of language and bad craft - only after that particular hurdle is passed do we give consideration to how interesting your subject matter is. That elusively difficult thing to define - original voice - is also very important.

Despite its 20-odd years in existence, Qwerty is, ultimately, a youthful magazine. We're always looking for work that defies convention and expectation. We love enthusiasm and concise cover letters. We particularly encourage submissions by writers and artists from intersectional and under-represented communities.

Eyelands Book Awards is open to all writers and poets, regardless of nationality, age, gender, sexuality etc. The advice I would give is send us your best, something you are really proud of, a book that is well crafted and bears your personal mark as a writer. We love books and we read all submissions with appreciation and genuine interest. We are also writers ourselves and we are aware of the long process and hard work that goes into the making of a book and this is something we always keep in mind when we read submissions.

Please review your work as an outsider and make it as perfect as possible in terms of word length, precision, quality, grammar/language etc., Please try to explore new forms/structures. More than anything else, the work must breathe life.

Take the time to read up about the journal carefully. Pore over past issues to get a better understanding of the style and type of work that has been published so far. Pay attention to submission guidelines, and follow them. Be respectful and professional in all dealings.

Read the guidelines and read some content. It's free. Good advice for any publication, we reckon.

Please read the guidelines! And write musically. I love little unexpected moments and beautiful language.

It's a cliche to say that you should send us your best work, but seriously, send us your best work -- and I mean in all ways. No typos. Formatted properly (regular 12 pt font, double spaced, 1 inch margins, your name and contact info on the first page, for the love of god include a word count somewhere). I intentionally don't read the cover letters until after I've read the piece and try not to look at the author's name, but when I'm done and if the work has impressed me, the next thing I'm going to do (or maybe by the fourth page) is look at the cover letter and see what it says, so include some basic bio stuff. If you've never been published before, it's okay to say that -- trust me, we WANT to be someone's debut publication! Likewise, I don't really care where you got your MFA. I mean, include it if you want to and are proud of the work you've done (you should be!) but if you've had more than, say, eight literary journals publish your work, that's more impressive to me and I don't care where you got your MFA. Also, editors change frequently and it's confusing, but we're still seeing people address by name fiction editors and EICs who haven't worked for the magazine in years and years. If you're not 100% sure if that editor is still working there, leave it off and just address your cover letter to the Witness editors. And goodness gracious, please change your copy/pastes -- I can't tell you how many times we've seen cover letters addressed to Tin House, Ploughshares and the like. I also see really long cover letters that describe the short story in a blurb, or even worse, a two-paragraph synopsis. This isn't a novel -- your short story should tell me the rules itself and need no introduction.

Read the magazines in which you aspire to publish. When you find material that seems to be in the same realm as your own in subject matter, range and style, then submit your work. Write an informative but short cover letter. If someone advised you to do so, name the advisor.

Read our books. Chapbooks are available for free from our website. This will help give you more of a sense of the types of voices we are drawn to as well as what we're looking for in terms of collection cohesion.

Give us your best work, the one that sheds light on something overlooked or unnoticed. Are you passionate about something? Are you grief stricken or ebullient? Share your thoughts in the form that demonstrates your excitement and your skill.

PLJ makes all of its content available on EBSCO, ProQuest and other platforms that are highly accessible. So think about it this way: if your work is accepted and you find it via a search for your name on one of these and spot typos or other errors you left behind, how would you feel? In other words, proofread your work for yourself rather than for anybody else. And if the topic you are covering or the manner of covering it is distasteful or poorly done if you saw it coming from another author, also refrain from submitting it. Most importantly, just do it, submit your work to PLJ/CCR, it is most wanted.

Please read work from our fiction archive to get a sense of our tastes, our evolution, and what we have recently published, and please read the guidelines. Rejections are hard for us, too. Really. We accept fewer than 0.5% of the pieces submitted to us, and have to decline truly excellent work all the time.

Follow the submission guidelines, and be a generally nice and patient person. Look, if you're submitting a story that we love, it's going to get bought. I promise you those same rules apply to every other market you submit to, and the story we pass on might very well be the story that the next market falls in love with-- and vice versa. It happens all the time. That's not an excuse to not always be revising and improving your craft, but the simple truth is that good stories will get bought, and "good" is often a subjective thing. The only way to self sabotage yourself aside from not always striving to improve and put words on paper, is get your story dumped because you didn't bother reading the submission guidelines, or deciding for some reason or other to be a jerk. Editors and slush staff are people too, and a lot of them are volunteers. And we're definitely all always behind in our email. Being gracious, professional and understanding goes a lot farther than people sometimes think in this industry.

We accept work that makes our readers think AND feel. It is important to be relatable as much as possible. It is important that the writer be able to write and stand in their full truth of their own identity. Raising Mothers is more than a literary space; we treat it as a place for healing.

First, write something awesome. Then, revise. Repeat step two. Get a great writing buddy or two and listen to their constructive criticisms and feedback (remember that they are on your team. If they're not, get new writing buddies). Revise accordingly. Then put the manuscript away for a while, maybe 6 weeks or more. Then read it again and tweak and revise as necessary. Next, consider hiring an editor to help you clean it up. We do not expect perfection, but we do want to see that our authors are professionals too. Part of that means investing in your work when the occasion arises. Write a killer query letter, prepare your synopsis, and hit us with it.

First of all, you must either be from the South or have spent significant time here. Your work also must be influenced by the region and reflect some aspect of the culture and/or landscape.

Follow the submission guidelines! We acquire 5 different genres and each month has its own theme. Make sure that you format your submission correctly so that it has a chance to get to our editors.

Be yourself, let your voice shine through, and don't be afraid to show your quirks! We love an interesting cover letter much more than a long list of all your accomplishments. Do your very best to submit well-edited, thoughtful work. And it won't hurt you to pad our egos a little bit by telling us why you like Blank Spaces and want to be part of it! Please take the time to understand what kind of writing we're looking for. If you send us something swarming with vulgarity, we'll know you haven't invested the time to get to know us before submitting.

I think it's very important to find the right match for your work and the only way to determine if your work is a good match for Miracle Monocle is to read some issues. They're all available online and for free. I'd also say that we value a strong manuscript over a pithy cover letter. You don't need fancy accolades to appear in our journal, but you do need very a carefully edited and very carefully considered manuscript to capture our attention.

Flash Fiction is short. I don't mind reading lots of it to find the stuff that's just right for the podcast, and I'm not always sure what that will even be. I'm often surprised by the topics and styles of story that make the cut, so don't self-reject. There is no story too weird, too normal, too dramatic, too direct. If it's well-written, and still works when read aloud, it stands a chance of being selected.

Please use page breaks between pieces.

Our issues are free to read digitally. Read our archived issues to grasp an understanding of the general style of writing we prefer. We read every submission, but we value works that connect to the human senses and emotions.

Be original: I only care about your dead mother if you can give me a reason to care.
Be patient: We get a lot of submissions. If you don't receive a response in three weeks, don't send me angry emails inquiring on the status of your submission. Wait at least three months.
FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES.

Vonnegut's Eight Rules for Writing
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

To paraphrase George Orwell, good writing is like a window pane, and the editors of Fine Lines hope to assist developing writers see through their windows more clearly. The bottom line of our efforts in this project is to help writers develop their full potential. We often see ourselves as "writing coaches," and we value your participation in this endeavor very much. Our editors work with the following guidelines:
1. Fine Lines provides publication opportunities for writers of all ages.
2. Our journal is one way for schools to achieve their writing goals.
3. Good writing begins with a proper, positive attitude.
4. All teachers should be writing teachers.
5. Schools can order Fine Lines for their teachers, students, and administrators.
6. Fine Lines values reader input.
7. Many English departments and libraries support this project.
8. Send email file attachments in Microsoft Word and the MLA format.
9. All writing genres are accepted. We print photography and other art forms.
10. Fine Lines does not publish profanity, sexuality, or extreme violence.
Remember Horace's words, "He who has hit upon a subject suited to his powers will never fail to find eloquent words and lucid arrangement."

Read, read read and follow the guidelines before submitting work anywhere.

Be bold, take a risk, but also be relevant. Make me laugh or cry until my ribs hurt. Have an authentic voice, and give us your best.

Write a piece that explores something important to you, make sure that it sings for you, share it with someone you respect (i.e. BETA reader writing or reading in the same genre) and see whether it speaks to them. Listen to their feedback but keep the piece your own. If you have several such pieces and are deciding which to submit, choose the one your BETA reader would enthusiastically recommend others to read - "word-of-mouth" and enthusiasm are as important indicators of a good story, as good words and fine rhythm.

Be you. Try to find your own voice in your writing/artwork rather than emulating someone else, because those genuine, introspective, clear pieces are the ones that really stand out.

Less than 500 words, not a single character rant, stay away from the first person narrative voice unless it is bat crazy good. Also, I'd say to send us that piece you wrote which later you felt like you shouldn't have. The thing that made you pause as a writer is probably what you should be always aiming to write. Artistically, we are dying for more drawings, sketches, graffiti, things that are rough, real, expressive, basically we are looking for art with a personal edge and we're not so interested in that beautiful photograph you took on holiday in Italy last summer.

Be patient and use your intuition. Send us a piece that feels like a good fit. If we don't take it but ask to see more, we mean it.

Send us your best work. To see if your work tunes with our press, get a copy of River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-First Century and see if you like what is published here. If you love this book, we may be the right press for you. Before submitting, proofread your ms. one more time to make sure every line delivers -- no word clutter, line breaks at the best place to frame your language, organic stanza breaks. A book is ready for publication when you are proud of every page.

Be honest in every aspect of your work, both its creation and its presentation.

Please read our guidelines. Please download one of our issues and read it. Finally, please assume good intent all around. We do.

A potential contributor would do well to read our archives to get a sense of the wide range of what we like and what we've published in the past. We expect superior craft (clarity, concrete details, strong narrative development). We value ambiguity, complexity, depth, thoughtfulness, delicacy, humor, irreverence, lyricism, sincerity; the elegant and the raw. Be sure to read our submissions guidelines closely; each department has different slightly different requirements, so know your audience before you submit!

Lately I've been reading a lot of stories that simply aren't finished. It's like the writer was tired and just hoped it would be good enough. Don't settle for good enough. Finish the work you start and don't send it out until it's ready (this usually involves putting it away for a few weeks).

Polish is very important, regardless of what you're doing. We aren't sloppy. Whatever you're working on, do it with gusto and effort, avoid being shy or ashamed, put yourself in the center.

Reading some of our previous issues will always be the best advice. Send us work you believe in. Take risks. Be you.

Read what we've published so far. Read our mission statement, but more than anything, just don't "phone it in." Make sure it is coming from a true place. As Jorie Graham puts it; hold the work up to your own pulse, when it matches, it is ready. I would say also to come as you are. We don't accept or decline based on your achievements, we accept or decline based on something much deeper and hard to define, your heart. Where have you come from and where are you going, to quote Joyce Carol Oates, that's what we want to know. Show us that- the journey and the struggle. The survival.

Send us your queerest, bravest, strangest work, the work that scares you a little as you write it.

Read a back issue or two. We're not looking for any specific themes or topics--only well-crafted writing. Send us sentences that make us read them twice--not out of confusion but admiration.

Read past winners, especially those from the most recent 3-5 years, because editorial staff and tastes may have changed. Do a little research on this year's guest judge. Read the judges' essays from previous years, because we always give advice on common problems with the submissions. Be extra conscious of racial, gendered, class, body type, and mental health stereotypes (we list our pet peeves about these in the judges' essays). Don't gratuitously sexualize or exoticize your characters. A strong ending to a story doesn't have to tie up all the loose ends, but it should feel as though a central question has been settled, a definitive change has been made, or an important moment in time has concluded.

Read back issues. Seriously, many of the rejections I send out are because the aesthetic doesn't fit our magazine. We don't really do rainbows and unicorns and happy baby stories.

Write well. Read our submission guidelines as well as back issues of the journal. Following our simple guidelines will put you ahead of the pack. If your piece is rejected, try again with another. Post it to our forums (or to another community's boards) for feedback, rewrite and resubmit. Editors want to publish your work, not dash your dreams. Keep writing well.

Most importantly, read an issue (or four, or five) first. Do you like what we're doing? If you do, we may like your work as well.

Please take a close look at our submission guidelines and read/view a sampling of published pieces in your genre - essay, short story, poetry, book reviews, and photography. Before submitting your work, read your piece aloud, perhaps workshop it with a critique group, and check carefully for typos (including the dreaded two spaces after the period).

Work on your sentences. Can you get symbolism in every single line? How about the five senses? How about the "other" five senses? Compress the prose. More dense. Denser.

Read our past issues and our submission guidelines. Please note we are a journal of short prose. We love flash fiction and prose poems but we do not publish verse poetry.

Carefully proofread your cover letter and the first three pages of your story. Typos and grammar errors are human, and we're understanding of that. But typos and errors that appear in the cover letter or first three pages of a submission (or in the first poem of a set) tend to suggest that care was not taken at some point in the submission/writing process. We take time and care when we read each submission, and we like to see the submissions reflect that the author has done the same.
I would also say, regarding cover letters, the best formula is to keep it short and simple. We like to see the title of the piece(s) you're submitting, a word count if appropriate, and if the submission is simultaneous. Beyond that, a short bio is appreciated. That's it!

Send us something we haven't read before, written in a voice we haven't read before. We pay close attention to the quality of the prose so mind your lines. As always, a strong opening will grab our attention.

Always read the guidelines thoroughly before submitting, and make sure every word you've written is carrying its weight. Also, try not to be discouraged by rejection. Often, we receive work that is excellent but that just doesn't fit with the content we're currently interested in publishing.

Read our submissions page: We publish works of resistance, nothing else, albeit the forms resistance takes are numerous in terms of genre, style, topic, etc.

Make sure to follow the submission instructions. Send us your work every year. Whatever our response to you was last year, we want to read your writing and see your art!

Read a variety of articles and essays from different sections of the journal. Some sections tend to be more academic, some are more narrative and literary. We publish on a wide variety of topics but there does need to be a connection to both science/medicine and the humanities.

1. We encourage you to read at least one past issue. That said, we love change. Our editorial team is very open to reading work that is unlike what we've published in the past. How do we know what we're missing until we see it?
2. Submission guidelines are updated for every new reading period, and sometimes more often. It's imperative to read and follow them closely.
3. If your first submission is not accepted, try again! Many of our contributors have placed work with us after two or more attempts.

Advice that has been given by others and will continue to be given: read the journal; submit your best work; be professional in everything you do from the cover letter to your manuscript presentation; follow our submission guidelines faithfully. Do not think because we're a small literary journal that we do not have high standards and will publish anyone. We're not desperate.

Please include a brief cover letter with your submission, and please give us time to respond. We have a very small, all-volunteer staff, so it can take us quite a while to get to your submission. If you haven't heard from us after six months, feel free to write to us.

Don't hold back. Send us work that frightens and exhausts you. Be bold. We're not easily offended.

Back issues and subscriptions are available for purchase on our website. Read the submission guidelines, thoroughly. Not sure if your writing would be a good fit? Try us. We are looking for both new and established writers. Whoever you are, wherever you are, write your best work and send it to us. We can't wait to read it.

Please take the time to read a full issue (or two) of Saint Katherine Review before submitting. This is the best way to see the scope of our journal and to get a feel for what we like to publish. Be sure to check your work before sending. Poorly formatted documents, whether it is grammar, spelling or font size and use, distracts from what we're reading. Polish it beautifully so that your words come through! We recognize that it takes courage to send work out to be considered. Please know that even if your piece is not accepted, we are grateful for the opportunity to read it. We hope you'll continue to share your work with us.

Submit your best. This almost always means when you're finally sick of the text and don't want to look at it any longer, and this definitely means other people need to read and critique your work who aren't immediate friends and family. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have people close to you encourage your writing and say wonderful things about your story. Everyone needs the support. But said people won't offer those biting critiques if something doesn't work.
That said, once your text is ready, please read our submission guidelines and adhere to them (this also means submitting when we are open to queries, too).

Be sure your work has an intersectional feminist angle--we want work that is about your own experiences that you can speak to, and we want to hear your unique perspective as an intersectional feminist. We also appreciate risk-taking and formally bold angles, but will also consider more traditional formats as well.

It is always best to read an issue of F(r)iction before submitting, to get a more complete sense of the work we typically publish. We love literary fiction and poetry, but we also love speculative, genre-bending work, and it's always fun when those genres overlap. If your writing is taking risks and has had a tough time finding a home elsewhere, consider submitting to F(r)iction!

Look at the Submissions page. I know a lot of journals say this, but I took a lot of pains with it and go over what I'm looking for in a very extensive fashion there. If you read that page before sending, there is no chance you'll not have an exact idea of what I expect and what I'm looking for in a story. Other than that, I'd tell someone to not send realism. It's frustrating reading through a submission waiting for something innovative to show up and get to the end and realize I've read yet another story about a relationship falling apart or a guy trying to "find himself" in the wake of some tragic event or something like that. There's been enough of that, I think. Or at least for my tastes.

Please inform us at the outset if you are simultaneously submitting your work elsewhere (it's best if you're not), and let us know immediately if anything you've sent us has been taken elsewhere. As for translations, please include, if possible, copies of the original texts, and let us know whether or not you have already secured permission to publish your versions. (it's best if you have.) Also, do not submit your own translations of your own work, unless your name is Vladimir, or Czeslaw, or Joseph.

We want to see life on each page.

Be sure your work has an intersectional feminist angle--we want work that is about your own experiences that you can speak to, and we want to hear your unique perspective as an intersectional feminist. We also appreciate risk-taking and formally bold angles, but will also consider more traditional formats as well.

We are a new publication, but we do have high standards. Please send us your very best work.

Read the writers and poets we have already featured. It goes without saying you should read the submission guidelines and follow them. Sadly few who submit actually follow the guidelines. Be patient, we are all busy people, we'll get back to you.

1. Read our current & past issues to get a good idea of our tastes.
2. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!
3. We love it when people send word docs, rather than PDF's. It's much more convenient for our editorial staff, when there are slight changes we want to make to a piece.

Re-read and get someone else to read it for you. Take criticism with an open mind - and take it for what it is meant to be - help and guidance.

read what we publish, or don't. everyone's time is limited and there are too many good journals/writers/pieces of art to spend hours engaging with things you don't want to. go outside, have experiences and regrets. read what makes your work better and more like itself. and then send us your best. even if it's not for us we are honored to read it and send all the good vibes.

Read the magazine (it’s online) and note the tone, feel, humor, subject matter, type of conflict and how it is or isn’t resolved, and the sound and use of language. Don’t send your piece until you’ve read it aloud several times. Follow the guidelines, and spell the editor's name correctly.

Oh, my, just the usual. Read the current issue. Read and follow the instructions for submissions.

I know it's almost a cliche, but: Read it first. Online submissions are a great convenience for both writers and editors, but writers have a tendency to over-submit--to dozens of publications at a time with a few clicks. They have no intention of reading most of the publications to which they submit, which is a huge irony. If they don't see that irony, they shouldn't submit to The Florida Review.
Also, please be patient and kind. Educate yourself about what it's like behind the scenes at literary magazines. Some have more resources than others, but almost all of us do this as a labor of love. Most of us get paid nothing and do our editorial work on top of other jobs and job responsibilities. Most of us are also writers, who are taking time away from our own work to make opportunities for other writers. We do our best with very little. If you don't understand these things, we will consider you an egotistical rank amateur.

Edit, edit, edit, and then go back and edit some more. Yes, you will be professionally edited if you’re accepted for publication with us – but that doesn’t mean your book shouldn’t already be in the best possible shape you can make it. Be ready and willing to make changes and to dig into your work layer by layer, no matter how many times you’ve already done it; there’s always something more to discover and refine.

Read out guidelines first! Err on the side of shorter works (under 10K) and only send work in when we are open for submissions.

Read what we've published, follow our guidelines blah blah blah. Just kidding... Have fun. If it isn't fun, something is off the rails. Send us your stuff - we're interested.

Embrace your own vision. Love what you send us. Also, read the magazine; see if what we publish hits you in the gut.

Besides the obvious advice of adhering to the guidelines and revising your work, what often separates the semi-finalists and finalists from the winner is whether the chapbook works as a coherent manuscript. That doesn't mean we need a rigorous formal consistency or that all the pieces need to fit an obvious theme. But we want a work that has thought through how the whole chapbook hangs together: this often becomes the deciding point when dealing with so many different genres and aesthetics.

Read actively and widely in your genre, both the tradition you are writing into and the contemporaries you are in dialogue with. Don't be afraid to take chances with your language, your imagery, your line-breaks, your characters, your story, your thoughts. Don't be afraid to be interesting. When you surprise yourself with what you have written, you are probably on the right track.

Be professional, polite, take some time to look at our company online and don't just blindly submit without knowing who you're submitting to, include something about yourself, a brief story synopsis, a snappy subject line, and tell us why we should publish you.

Be adventurous. We admire and respect writers who take risks. We get lots of love stories but we don't get lots of stories that challenge cultural assumptions, the nature of reality and the conventions of literature.

Read, read, read. And write, write, write. The only way to develop both a compelling voice and a piece of work that succeeds as craft is to practice a lot and to enthusiastically check out what others are doing in their writing. This substrate is the understory for all literature. Given that you are already doing all that, check out our magazine on the newsstand, or via subscription, and read our submission guidelines carefully. Is flling Station a good fit for the work(s) you're considering submitting? If so, craft a brief covering letter and submit your work via Submittable, through our website.

Be sure to read the guidelines carefully!

Read the guidelines and be familiar with what previous editions of the +Horror Library+ have published. Remember that light horror or psychological horror trumps anything brutal, but remember also that something needs to "happen" in the story; do not send just a vignette.

We're nice people - we understand if you don't follow the "submitting your writing in the English Speaking World" guidelines perfectly. Try to have a subject on the subject line - it keeps my computer from dumping it into the spam file. Otherwise, just do your best. Write your best. Tell the truth the best way you know how.

I do blog weekly with tips for stories at electricspec.blogspot.com
But the best advice I have is: send it!

As most editors would probably say, read our issues to get an idea of the type of things we publish.

In order to be published, writers need to have won a prize or have been listed in our yearly contest. The best advice we have In order to create a winning story is to read all the advice and tips from the many authors we have interviewed on our site. A short summary would be to write a fantastic beginning and make sure it ends well.

Read the past issues to see if your work "fits" (although we welcome all types, styles, etc.). Then produce a polished, vibrant, surprising piece of art that you're proud of and want to show to the world.

I think the writers who we publish generally have a strong awareness of identity and the ways in which it interacts with social trends, and their writing reflects this awareness and sensitivity. A lot of journals will say, read our work to get a stronger sense of what we publish. This is of course true for Apogee, but I don't think that a writer can decide to make a piece fit into Apogee's aesthetic--in a way, their worldview already has to demonstrate a similar vision--a complicated way of looking at identity, and a way of presenting marginalized identities that doesn't further alienate them.

Besides the usual advice about spell checking, formatting, etc., (read the guidelines), we want to know why your story is important to the characters in it, to you as the writer, and to us. If you don't know why we should care, we don't either.

Please read our submission guidelines. If you have a question about whether a story would be suitable for the upcoming anthology, feel free to contact us on our website, thirdflatiron.com

Read. The. Guidelines. Join a critique group. We especially like the Online Writing Workshop for Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror. Face to face crit groups are valuable, too.
Finish what you started, submit it, and write the next thing.

Make sure the text is ready for us to read--avoid errors and make sure it is presented well. Then read for clarity and avoid excessive wording for the sake of adding words.

We currently web-publish one story a month, free. That means if you get published, you get spotlighted on the homepage WITH a custom illustration or two, sometimes by an award-winning artist. We also have PDFs of older issues (back when we did issues) and special collections.
We try to send print editions of our story collections to top anthology editors. That means your story has a chance to get called up to the big leagues. We're minor league, but we're equal opportunity.
You should visit the site ASAP or download one of our PDFs and skim through it. Ideally, you should print up the PDF, staple the pages together, and put the whole wad on top of your toilet tank. You're only two enchilada platters away from reading a whole issue. Then, while you're still delirious from that much ultra-intense Space Squid fiction and comics, you should pound out 1000 words of nonsense (hopefully not on toilet paper) and submit that instead of your 5000 words of aliens sodomizing rednecks.

Submit the things that excite you. We love to see work that is surprising and substantial. We want things that will feed us: nurturing, warm and tasty.

For fiction, capture our attention within the first four sentences. For poetry, put your best poem at the beginning of the submission. And overall, seriously, send only your best work. If you don't love it, how can we?

Check out our submission guidelines and archived issues, of course. Keep in mind that we're looking for original, daring work though--if what you do isn't represented in out most recent issues, that could mean that we'd be even more excited to publish it.

Good storytelling is the key. Whether you're writing exquisite literary prose or a rip-roaring action adventure, your characters and their problems must grip us from the start and carry us along to a satisfying ending. It's a good idea to read an issue or two to get an idea of our tastes and the range of story length and tone. And please do an extra polishing pass or two on the manuscript before you submit. A gem of a story may get passed over if the first thing an editor sees is a bouquet of typos wrapped up in sloppy grammar.

Be nice to your mother. Wash your dishes. Don't bite your nails. Tell your friends you love them (as much as possible). Read widely. Be the weirdest possible version of yourself. Call your grandparents. Don't read Twilight. (Or do.) Don't send us racist, sexist, or otherwise intolerant poems. Everyone says this, but seriously--read the journal before you submit. Not only will it help you, it's just a really freakin' good journal. Tell your friends. #DeadPeople

Give us your unique voice. We want you to not just tell a story, but make us feel the story. Make sure your work is perfectly proofread for errors and accept any criticism or fixes in the spirit in which it is intended. And if we don't accept a piece, it does not mean we didn't like your writing, but that this particular work did not fit our publication. Don't give up!

Read our submission guidelines carefully. We also encourage people to order a sample copy of the magazine to give the best sense of the type of work we select.

Read past issues, follow us on social media (I thoroughly believe social media is a gateway to what our editors read and are enthusiastic about), and don't send the first draft (unless it's amazing!).

Take the time to write a great synopsis. The synopsis shows us how well you know your story craft. We want to know that your story makes sense, has a dynamic plot, that your characters have good goals, motivations, and conflicts, and that the story has a beginning, middle, and end. All that information is revealed in the synopsis. You can submit a synopsis of any length, but the average length is three pages.

Follow the guidelines, but know that we are open to any theme, angle, or style. Nothing is too far out or even accessible, for that matter. It simply must be well done, engaging, and do whatever it is wonderful literature does when you read it.

Double check it and have someone else read over it if you can. Make sure the writing is of a good enough standard for HeadStuff. If it's science or historical, make sure to check your facts. Make sure your science is peer-reviewed, we don't publish sensationalism. Go to our submissions page and submit directly to the editor you're looking for.

Read what we've published, then try to surprise us.

Read our guidelines and send appropriate material within the stated submission times - no children's books, fantasy novels or film scripts, please! Don't go overboard with a cover letter: the work will speak for itself. Have a read through our archives - they're all online and free - to see what we've selected in the past. And - obviously - proofread your work before you send it. Avoid peculiar fonts and layouts - they won't work with our site design. And send us work in Word format where possible rather than PDF - it's easier on our end.

Write in your own voice, and don't doubt your humor. If you honestly think a piece is funny, and you can laugh out loud while reading your own work, it probably IS funny. It couldn't hurt to run it by a few honest friends though.

Take risks. Give your readers the benefit of the doubt--they will get it.

Have patience for a response. We really do read every submission, and it takes some time.

It sounds trite, but read what has already appeared on the site. For example, you won’t find mundane and subtle slice of life fiction, or “literary” soap opera. Nor will you read elitist poetry with obscure references that make readers feel dumb. Write to write, not to impress others. And don’t be afraid to have fun. Humor it up. Write something that’s bonkers but still illustrates a neat idea.

We want cool, edgy material--not your typical run of the mill stuff. We want work that subverts conventions and works in the grey areas. Though, that's not to say Twisted Vine isn't interested in traditional work, we are, but we just aren't interested in the mainstream. We welcome literary work from all perspectives, but make it fresh.

When you've completed your story have a third party read it. Ask them where it drags; if something about the story feels unsatisfying; what their favorite imagery was. Try rewriting with the feedback in mind. Being a good storyteller is hard and honing the craft requires feedback.
I'm a big fan of rewriting work, even though it can be painful rewriting helps me decide what is crucial and effective.

Grimdark, as in most genres, is all about the characters. I want characters that are unique, different, relatable, and definitely morally questionable working their way through grim story arcs in worlds that are dark. Get that right with some professional writing, a good voice, an awesome twist and you're half way there.

Buy a cpy of the anthology and see what kind of stories I prefer to publish. Then read ALL the rules on the website and abide by them.

Do not hesitate, please send your work. Hurray!

Do not hesitate, please send your work. Hurray!

We love sentences, so attention to craft is key.

These might seem obvious but are worth mentioning;
1. Become familiar with the journal to see the scope of work we are interested in and have published. So consider seriously subscribing!
2. Read the submission guidelines carefully.
3. Realise that if you don't get accepted for publication it may not necessarily reflect on the quality of your work, but rather the particular theme or synthesis of writing we are showcasing for the issue.
4. Make your work align with the particular publication you are submitting to. Please don't submit the same writing to us at the same time you are submitting it to another magazine.
We get a lot of submissions and appreciated the calibre and quality of the work we receive. It is very humbling.

I'd tell authors to send work where they surprised themselves in their writing, where they arrived at some place other than where they intended with a character or a poem. The editors at Little Patuxent Review have a wide variety of tastes and are savvy readers looking for something that manages to spark the imagination, then sustain that fire throughout the writing.

Please take a careful look at our site and previously published titles.

Trim the fat...and the muscle, and then take a hard look at those bones. We want short stories and flash, but we also want fully realized fiction. Avoid dull exposition. Grammar.

As with most other publications, read previous issues to see what we are drawn to - and then send us what you think is your best work regardless of what you've just read. We love being asked to reconsider our opinions and prejudices.
And keep submitting - we've all been rejected way more times than we've been accepted and tenacity goes a long way in this life. Take criticism in the spirit in which it is offered - and never take it personally.

Stick to the topic of the call for the issue. Look at the mission of the Black Earth Institute and the work of its fellows.

DON'T read our previous issues. Well, read them, sure, we'd like to get some of these back issues out of our closet, but really, it might only confuse you if you use our previous issues as a basis for your next submission since we have such a quick editorial turnover. We tend to skew toward formally innovative work because that's the emphasis of the MFA program at the University of Arizona (think Ander Monson, Kate Bernheimer, Josh Wilkinson). Just send along your best work!

Honestly, it's simple: work on your craft, work on your pieces, read, read, read, polish, polish, polish. There are no tricks. Write well, and you'll get published.

Don't worry so much about your cover letter. Submittable's layout makes it pretty easy to avoid reading those almost entirely. But outside of that, send us your favorite stuff. We'll give it a good read, or two, or three.

Read other stories that we have published (nature.com/futures) and don't rely on typical SF cliches to give your story backbone. And make sure that something actually happens in your story: don't write a scenario.

Chase us around the kitchen table. Seduce us with the language of innocence and experience. Try to avoid simple reflections or recollections. Try to send us something we couldn't ever have written ourselves.

We’re interested in fiction and nonfiction from emerging and established writers. If you have a piece that you’ve worked hard on, feel passionate about, and feel it will leave a strong impression on the reader then we’d love to read it. Don’t be afraid to take chances, to surprise us. And, as always, revise, revise, and revise before sending something out.

Submit what you think you'll be proud of in 5 years. Be sure to put your name on the document you are submitting.

Do it. You have nothing to lose. Entertain us, educate us, inform us, inspire us!

Read a recent issue of the journal. Back issues are often on sale. Go back and reread the piece you'd like to submit. Then reread it again.

Read The Satirist to get a feel for the material. Get the free email newsletter at http://www.thesatirist.com/_thesatirist_admin/Newsletter.html or follow on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheSatirist
Satire should have a moral framework from which to critique injustice, hypocrisy, or pretentiousness. Easy targets like dumb celebrities are not worthy targets. The fake news format should walk a fine line with serious tone but ridiculous content.
Fake news is fine, but still better are satirical pieces in other formats: short stories, poems, reviews of imaginary works.

Read what we've published already and think outside the box.

Read an issue or two of the journal; that's the best way to get an idea of what we publish. It's always best to be creative and unique and tell your story from a fresh perspective, but I prefer a "cliche" story told beautifully and eloquently over a crazy/unique story told poorly.
And please PROOFREAD!!!

I think we've all had the experience of finishing a piece of writing and feeling 100% certain we are a genius, only to encounter it a few weeks or months later and realize we were 100% mistaken. Not that we aren't brilliant but perhaps that first draft we are only brilliant-in-chrysalis. So as tempting as it is I'd let the genius-draft sit a little while and come back to it and patiently work it over. When you've done that--composed a thoughtful and well-crafted literary work that is aware of its own mortality--that's the time to submit. That humility and thoughtful forbearance comes across to readers, believe me.

Read the guidelines, of course. Not only does it state the kind of submissions I'm after, it also states what I DON'T want. If you're stuck, there's a list of writers/artists I admire on there.
Read previous issues. They're all free on the web so you don't even have to buy a copy.
If the guidelines say 'do not send in the body of the email' please do not send in the body of the email.
I always welcome queries and suggestions if you're not sure whether your piece will fit.
At least start your submission email off with a greeting! Simply attaching your work without a/saying hi, b/telling me who you are and c/telling me what you are submitting is just bad manners and will usually result in me hitting delete.

Read it and weep.

Read our guidelines. Check out the website and blog. Subscribe to our newsletter. Join us on Facebook and Twitter. Check out our books. Get to know us before submitting so that you'll be able to tell whether your book is going to be the right fit. The biggest mistake writers make in submitting to us is sending material we don't publish (like poetry or children's books, or something that's thematically not the right fit). Also, please have patience! We're small, and we carefully consider every submission we receive; this can take some time.

Read the guidelines and the rules for entry. Too many entries fail to make it through because they don't follow instructions.

Please do so! Thank you.

Read submission guidelines carefully, as they change from issue to issue. Give us your best. We're looking for original, engaging writing. Do include a list of contents. An interesting title helps.

Revise, revise, revise. Send us your best work.

Look at our previous issues and see if your writing shares the qualities of our past contributors.

Do it! Momma gonna love you!

We really, truly are open to all styles and genres. We never know what we might love, so don't be afraid to submit something edgy, something reserved, something shiny, something dark, something something.

Definitely know who you're submitting to, but send everywhere! You never know who will feel drawn to your work. Don't limit yourself to a self-prescribed writing label.

Look at the guidelines on our website [www.pushingouttheboat.co.uk]. Avoid wordiness, sentimentality, cosiness, sensationalism. Thoroughly check your work before submission ie spelling, punctuation, layout, internal consistency. Our team are all volunteers - we don't have time to tidy up. For short stories make sure the start is strong or you may lose your reader. Likewise don't disappoint with your ending. We value originality: if you choose certain themes eg childhood, midlife crisis, death, you are likely to be up against a lot of competition in a similar vein - we try not publish two pieces on the same theme. If you send an excerpt from a longer piece, make sure it stands on its own.

Adhere to the guidelines and go for it! You will never succeed if you don't try. If you have any questions, feel free to email us.

Do not be arbitrary in your selection of materials to submit to our journal. Make an effort to match your submission to your understanding of our journal's aesthetic. That's an effort requiring preparation on the writer's part, and you can rest assured we'll notice and appreciate that effort.

Send it to us.
One title per e-mail, please; that's how we keep track of things.
We prefer plain text. Word-processor attachments are perfectly okay. We don't like PDF files, and WordPerfect can cause problems in rich text format. If we can't open an attachment or we have problems with it, we'll let you know, and we can talk about an alternative.
Read the header of our Submissions guidelines, the part above the page index. The rest of it is a reference work. If we need to refer to any part of the guidelines, we'll include a link to the appropriate section in our correspondence.

We get a lot of awesome submissions that have fizzly endings. That’s disappointing for us. We’re all writers, and we know endings are hard. So if you give us one that leaves us a little breathless, at the very least your work will get another look.

We live in a country where people ignore things. If our citizenry can ignore a failed court system, widespread corruption, and poverty, they're going to ignore your stories, essays, and poems. I'm sorry, but it's true. What we, as writers, need to do is to create art that is unignorable. That's compelling and brave and beautiful. Stories, essays, and poems that can't be brushed aside.
I'm not saying that you need to send me stories about strippers or explosions. I think some of the most memorable stories I've read have been quietly compelling. I'm thinking of Joyce Carol Oates' "How I Contemplated the World..." or Stuart Dybek's "Pet Milk." That said, I also love George Saunders' "Sea Oak" and Robert Olen Butler's "Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot." Anything by Aimee Bender.
Good work will find a home. I think you have to believe that if you're a writer. Submit your best work (preferably to us), and it will find a home faster.

Work hard on revisions. Stay away from genre writing.

Have a sense in your work of both contemporary context and historical tradition. Many things sold as "new" or "experimental" are actually 100 years old. Also, learn to see in your work what readers will see, in all possible ways--not just clarity and coherence of image, scene, and character, but also allusions, political implications, comedy, self-pity. A healthy dose of irony builds the blood.

Don't be afraid to submit your work. Every submission is a different experience, and it is important to gain as much experience as possible. Also, please read the submission guidelines!

Read a couple issues of Ecotone. See what we like, how we've changed over the years. Pay attention to our themed issues.
Love your work as much as you want others to love it, then send it to us.

There is a difference between a microfiction piece and a joke.
We don't publish the latter.
Surprise us throughout the whole piece-- with voice, with setting, with dialogue, with changing POV--instead of with a "twist" ending.

For people seeking to publication, my best advice is to read our guidelines. Everything we're looking for is on our guidelines page. If they have questions, they should query before sending something inappropriate.

Know what we publish and ask yourself if you belong in the Red Hen tribe and being willing to promote your book. Ask not what your publisher can do for your book, but what you can do for it. It's your baby, now our baby, but still first your baby.

Of course, we'd love submitters to read an issue before sending work to us. Additionally, we always hope that our submitters' work will surprise us, thrill us, and make us wish we'd written it ourselves; we encourage writers to send us not only well crafted work, but work that excites.

Do not simultaneously submit.

If it's a story, check the flow of the words, read it out loud to someone.
It's amazing what a few commas will do to help the reader's understanding of a paragraph.
I reserve the right to put apostrophes in the right places...
I'm quite prepared to go with any weird idea, but if the words don't read properly you're doing your reader no favours.

Please check the web site and look at our first issue. Check the interview I gave for a general over view. That should help determine if Constellations is a likely place for a writer.

Make sure you let us know how you are connected to Chicago. We expect professionalism, though we do not require a long publication list. We expect honest work and can always spot highly workshopped MFA program work. We like a few "rough" edges.

We are very backlogged with fiction and poetry, but we are always in need of good nonfiction -- particularly critical nonfiction or nonfiction about a topic out in the world, rather than memoir (though we need good first-person pieces, too). The best place to start is with a Table Talk submission -- a prose piece of less than 1000 words -- because we publish at least three of those in every issue, and we are always looking for new writers in that category. Take a look at an existing issue to get an idea of what goes into Table Talk: it can be personal, critical, whimsical, serious, but it needs to be coherent, intelligent, and well-written.

Read our submission guidelines page. Also, I recommend being familiar with the sort of fiction we publish: recent and upcoming works include literary fantasy, urban fantasy, feminist sci-fi, gay speculative fiction, and magic realism.

Listen to some episodes, read the guidelines, read comments in our forums, consider if it's likely that your story idea may have already been done, consider the fact that we are an *audio* publication when picking material to send us, so try to go with well-plotted stories and not slow-moving character examinations (although we like those to, except for the slow-moving part)

Read us. Wait, just read. Write because you want to and because you're committed to the art, not because you want to get published. Know that editors want to like your work, and that we do not revel in rejecting it. Keep at it, always, if it is important to you. Support the writing community and other writers. Persistence pays off.

Read literary magazines. If you are interested in publishing in Epiphany consider subscribing and reading it carefully. This will deepen your understanding of what we do and of contemporary letters. Build a relationship with us on Facebook or Twitter. Have two people read your work before you submit. Not your writing teacher. Not your husband/wife. Not an old friend. Try someone -- not necessarily a literary type-- who you think might enjoy reading the story and who you think has good judgement. Finally don't let rejection get in your way. We get thousands of submission and simply cannot accept all the strong work we get. If you want to be a writer write, but try to remember that writing is an ongoing collaboration and those that read your work can help to fuel your fire.

Write for the sake of the reader, not for the sake of the story. After every sentence you write, think: "How is my reader going to FEEL about this?"

Since we’re fairly open in regards to work (although so-called “genre” pieces face an uphill battle with our editors), the most important thing to remember when submitting is to follow the instructions: each upload to the Submishmash site should be an individual story or poem; do not upload 80 pages and then direct us to read only page 25; submit a brief bio; do not go over the submission limits (words and number of submissions).

Hopeful contributors should first read our magazine and our submission guidelines. It is the best way of discerning the type of writing that we are looking for. We publish urban walking narratives. Do not take us out into the woods, or we’re likely to pull a shotgun.

Read the submission guidelines, send us work that surprises, be patient.

I like stories about ideas. I want to read something I haven't read before.

Read some of our content to see what our collective sense of humor is like. We also take bribes.

The usual: look at some back issues to get a sense of what we've published. Don't expect to be successful first time. We're able to accommodate less than 2% of work submitted. A response may take some time.

Read past issues and always ensure your grammar and spelling are right. Read through our team's comments on what particular editors are looking for (there's a lot of diversity within the editorial board itself, but some commonalities too). Be thorough. Don't just submit work helter-skelter.

Be very honest in what you write. Maybe use words that you particularly like. Maybe do a funny bit. It's OK to swear.

First, respect the genre. We can tell when writers and poets think that tossing off something cute or trivial will work for a publication that focuses on fairy tales. It is insulting and wastes everyone's time.
Second, read, read, read, read the submission guidelines and the publication. Follow the submission guidelines and enjoy the works we publish, but do not slavishly imitate the latter.
Third, love fairy tales. Read the old classics and allow their enchantment to engulf you.
Fourth, comment on our chosen selections. Enter our contests, participate in our unpaid guest blogging program. This lets us get to know the writer/poet. That way, we have an idea of what the writer/poet can do, so if we do see a submission that might be chosen, but needs a little work, we have faith that the creator can do the rewriting. Plus, we expect our writers and poets to support the publication as readers and participants. It's called Enchanted Conversation, after all. That means interaction.

1. Read the magazine.
2. Go ahead and send us simultaneous submissions. It takes us about 90 days to respond on average, and you don't want your stories sitting around that long when they could be under consideration at two or three other magazines as well.

Read the submission guidelines. Be sure you have practiced your craft. Read widely. If I ask who your favourite poet is, don't answer Garth Brooks.

Read the submission guidelines and proofread your own work before you click 'Send'. Being polite in your e-mail is optional, but would be very much appreciated.

Be sure what you are submitting is your best, best work. Get people you trust to critique your story honestly.
Use an editing program to help fine tune your work, you will be surprised at the errors picked up that you might have missed.
Please email Books to Go Now if you have any questions-they will get answered! We can offer further advice then about formatting which can be important for e-publishing.
We at Books to Go Now are all authors ourselves and love to help people achieve their writing goals.

I am avidly looking for science fiction stories and I never get enough of them. Stories that start off with people waking up, having breakfast, and/or dealing with boring jobs almost never appeal to me. Most stories are underpopulated. A lot of the tale can be told through the interaction of characters. Many of the stories I publish do have unhappy endings, but killing off your main character or deserting him or her to a woeful fate is often the lazy way to end a story because it doesn't require the writer to think about what will happen next. That doesn't mean I'm looking for happy endings, but I do like to see the character's personal growth (and, failing that, a clever reason as to why not).

Have a strong, unique voice. Be professional in your presentation.

Make sure you have a story. Many submissions are wonderful ideas, but they do not have conflict--resolved in some way, a problem--solved in some way, something learned from the experience.

Read the Rusty Truck, then if you think you are as good--send me 3-5 of your best unpublished poems. I very seldom and never on the first submission select from a single sub.

Be from the region--the North Pacific Rim!

Read what we've published. From there, get loose and paint tight.

Have other people look over your work to proofread and critique it.

Be of strong heart and good cheer.Come hard or don't come at all, yo.TQRstories has turned submitting fiction into a contact sport. Primadonnas and sissies need not apply.

Really knock us out in first sentence, the first paragraph. If we feel the story is taking too long to build, then the potential online reader will also, and we'll reject it. Weed out trite, overused phrases and adjectives/adverbs. They bug us. In fact, so do most adjectives and adverbs. And we never accept stories with the word "very" in them. Create characters we care about--be tender with them, but not cute. We only like cute in baby animals. Don't send us baby animals. Send us pictures of baby animals, but not embedded in computer viruses. We like stories, not ideas. Make sure your story is an organic story and not a frame of an idea.
We like when you buy our print journals and enjoy the authors whose work we found exceptional, even if your cat winds up peeing on the journal (yes, it happens). We can always send you a new one.

We're looking for writing that takes on our culture, that extends the genres of poetry or fiction. We're looking for literary fiction and genre fiction, the mystery. We are open to book excerpts, if they stand alone. As with most publications, check out our previous issues to get a sense of what we're about. www.solsticelitmag.org

Although our sole principle in the work we look for is excellence, hopeful contributors should remember that, in the end, our selection process is based on taste. This is why we often encourage hopeful contributors to send us new work even after a submission has been rejected. Read the journal, and read our submission guidelines.

Read the submission guidelines and send your best work (proofread the query letter and self-edit the manuscript before submission).

Read more than two issues of our magazine. Write and submit something better.

Please be patient as FFJ is an activity undertaken as a voluntary setup, so we too have day jobs and daily life problems.
We will give a thorough reading and editing instead of some standard drafted reply.
This takes time, but I am sure you all will prefer such delays over standard rejection slips.
Personalized attention, equal attention to all, an editorial feedback - its different and it cares about you.

Probably what every other editor out there says: "Familiarize yourself with our content first!" Frankly, I don't understand how anyone who is unfamiliar with our content can expect to get published by us. We have a specific brand of dark fiction, of offbeat prose, that we appreciate and want to feature. It's crucial to tap into that flavor. The Molotov Cocktail, while focusing on dark themes, doesn't cater to stories that are nasty for the sake of being nasty, and that's probably the mistake I see too often.

Submit work that you like, not work that you think we'll like.
Don't submit more than once during a submissions period.
Keep your cover letter short. Don't try to sell yourself. The writing is what matters.

Audio markets are faster-paced than print. Beautiful settings and expositions can cause the listener to glaze over and tune out. To make sure your story is good for audio, make sure you have a good hook and convincing dialog. Not saying we want all action and no character, just make sure your tale moves along.

Read it out loud to yourself first so that you can see where it does and doesn't work as a performed piece - and don't go over 2000 words! Also, if we give you feedback, keep trying.

Pay attention to the guidelines. Don't try to catch my eye with gimmicks like special paper or a fancy cover letter. Just give me good solid writing.

Write passionately, edit ruthlessly, proofread carefully.

To submit work that follows my basic guidelines: the balance between form/structure and content. Experimental fiction pieces and poetry can fall into this category. Even free verse can have a structure.
As to what style I look for, generally my rule is simplicity. This applies to both fiction and poetry, in somewhat different ways. I prefer to read fiction that deals with the essentials, in a sparse, almost impersonal way; where each word is important to the whole. I do not like to read a lot of details and no action. When it comes to poetry, I like to see that the words have some connection, some rational train of thought. I also like to see some sort of turn in the poem, a good beginning and a good ending. Basically, an entire unit, one that is purposefully presented.
Please read the guidelines and an issue or two. At least check out the table of contents from previous issues and a few samples that are available on the website. You should also read other literary magazines (online and print), as well as reading contemporary writers!

Spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck. Then hand it over to a beta-reader, and take their suggestions seriously; no written work is perfect on the first try. Then spellcheck again, this time visually; the computer doesn't know the difference between "lightning" and "lightening." Finally, make sure that your work meets the submissions criteria; if you send me something that I can't publish, I'll just be irked.

Write to impress. The 6S audience demands it.

First, use the contest premise. We're not kidding.
Second, tell us a story about interesting people in an interesting situation.
You do those two things and you've got a real chance.

Submissions can be made at any time. For a variety of reasons, we accept only postal submissions (with stamp, coupons or cash, though no self-addressed envelope is needed). We advise all potential contributors to visit our new website (www. irishpages.org) or request a brochure for general information, and/or to familiarize themselves with a copy of the journal. It is available at independent booksellers and several chain bookshops throughout Ireland and Great Britain, or can be ordered online. No more than eight poems or two prose pieces should be submitted at one time, or within any six-month period. The Editors aim to respond within eight months.

First, read samples of the work we publish to get a sense of the type of literature we prefer. Beyond our place-based context, we seek fiction and poetry that is delightful and surprising, work that is masterfully written, even if this would be the writer’s first publication. Even though we’ll accept a wide variety of work, we have our tendencies in both genres. That said, we’re seeking more multimedia interpretations in both genres: flash fiction with audio, prose poetry with images, and the like. Second, avoid clichés on the micro and macro scales. We like both strange and literal takes on our themes, but that doesn’t mean obvious, tired, or old.

Read a portion of our title list first. Always query.

Read out guidelines, and look over past issues to see if your writing might fit on. And if you have something to say and feel strongly about it, it just might interest us.

Read at least two issues to get a flavor of what we publish.

Read an issue or three. I know that gets said a lot, but, honestly, I have no idea how to adequately describe Jenny Ortiz’s “Out of Steam Punk and Zombies Come Bruce Lee” short of just saying “It was awesome” and telling someone to read it. So read it. Because that’s what we want. Stories like that.

As always, the best way to get a feel for what we're looking for is to read a couple of issues. Guidelines matter. There really does need to be some kind of speculative or progressive social/political element in the story. We've turned away some absolutely amazing horror or high fantasy or military sf stories because they didn't have the speculative features we're after.

Also, proofread. And read the story out loud to yourself--or better, get someone else to read it aloud to you. Nothing is more off-putting that unconvincing dialogue, cheesy prose, or text littered with typographic or punctuation errors.