No theme! Subject matter is entirely up to you. Surprise us.
But keep it short. See how much you can accomplish, how much of an impact you can have, with a small number of words. We want to wonder how you abracadabra words into magic. We want to be amazed and maybe a little jealous of how you do that.
One writer in the flash fiction category will be awarded a $400 prize and published in the summer issue. All entries are considered for publication with payment at our regular rate ($50).
Total word limit for this category is 1,000, same as for flash CNF and prose poem. One, two, or three flash fiction works in one Word doc, but no more than 1,000 words for all stories combined. Seriously. And shorter is often better. We love shorts.
Deadline is November 30, 2024.
Fee is $8.
Please do not include your name on your work.
Final judge: Francine Witte
(As always, writers may submit work in non-contest categories and pay no submission fee. Of course, only contest submissions are considered for prizes. Contest entry fees are used for prizes and for payments to all writers published in the journal. Every penny. Thank you.)
No theme for our winter contest. Subject matter is entirely up to you. Surprise us.
But keep it short. See how much you can accomplish, how much of an impact you can have, with a small number of words. We want to wonder how you abracadabra words into magic. We want to be amazed and maybe a little jealous of how you do that.
One writer in the flash creative nonfiction category will be awarded a $400 prize and published in the summer issue. All entries are considered for publication with payment at our regular rate ($50).
Total word limit for this category is 1,000, same as for flash fiction and prose poem. One, two, or three flash CNF works in one Word doc, but no more than 1,000 words for all works combined. Seriously. And shorter is often better. We love shorts.
Deadline is November 30, 2024
Fee is $8.
Please do not include your name on your work.
Final judge: Francine Witte
(As always, writers may submit work in non-contest categories and pay no submission fee. Of course, only contest submissions are considered for prizes. Contest entry fees are used for prizes and for payments to all writers published in the journal. Every penny. Thank you.)
No theme for our winter contest. Subject matter is entirely up to you. Surprise us.
But keep it short. See how much you can accomplish, how much of an impact you can have, with a small number of words. We want to wonder how you abracadabra words into magic. We want to be amazed and maybe a little jealous of how you do that.
One writer in the prose poem category will be awarded a $400 prize and published in the summer issue. All entries considered for publication with payment at our regular rate ($50).
Total word limit for this category is 1,000, same as for flash fiction and flash CNF. One, two, or three prose poems in one Word doc, but no more than 1,000 words for all prose poems combined. Seriously. And shorter is often better. We love shorts.
Deadline is November 30, 2024.
Fee is $8.
Please do not include your name on your work.
Final judge: Francine Witte
(As always, writers may submit work in non-contest categories and pay no submission fee. Of course, only contest submissions are considered for prizes. Contest entry fees are used for prizes and for payments to all writers published in the journal. Every penny. Thank you.)
Submit three poems. No fee. Please submit all poems in one document, not individually. If you later need to withdraw one or two poems, please send us a message through Submittable. No need to email us. No need to withdraw the entire submission. One submission per reading period.
Submit poems for contest at that link (during contest submission periods), not this one. Thanks.
Poems (including prose poems, which we love) should generally be single spaced, titled, with clear stanza breaks. Please proofread your work carefully before submitting.
We recommend that you read some poems from our online issues to get a sense of what we do and do not publish. Not that we're looking for any specific kind of poem. We like to be surprised.
We look forward to reading your work.
Submit one short story (really, just one, no more than 5,000 words; shorter is often better, to be honest). Flash fiction, one story only, may also be submitted here. Submit only one story per reading period. No fee.
We enjoy a wide range of literary short stories and recommend that you read same sample stories from our online issues to get a sense of what we publish.
Submit stories for the contest at that link (during contest submission periods), not this one.
Stories should be double spaced, 12-point standard font, one-inch margins, with indented paragraphs. It's helpful to include the word count on the first page. Pages should be numbered.
Please proofread your work carefully before submitting. A couple of typos isn't a deal breaker, but taking some time to polish your story—checking for spelling, grammar, punctuation, word usage, and other errors—before submitting it to any journal is a good idea. Also be careful not to submit a doc still in track changes mode. When you finish editing your work, accept the changes, eliminate comments, and save the doc.
We sometimes need to cap submissions to keep the numbers manageable. If writers withdraw their work to fix something and then re-submit it, this counts as two submissions in Submittable—which could end up being a problem. A minor typo? Let it go. A major revision? Send the new doc as an attachment to a Submittable message rather than withdrawing and re-submitting. But again, taking time to carefully proofread your work before submitting is best.
No need to tell us what your story is about or include extensive information about yourself. A "thank you for considering this story" and brief bio like others you see on our website is really all you need for the cover note box.
Please be sure to withdraw your work promptly if it is accepted by another publication.
We look forward to reading your work.
Submit one creative nonfiction piece (no more than 5,000 words). Shorter works of CNF are often a better fit for us.
No fee.
A few thoughts on what we're looking for:
For creative nonfiction, we look for the hallmarks described by Philip Gerard in Creative Nonfiction: particularly, an apparent and deeper subject, a well-told story, and the sense that the writer has spent considerable time exploring the subject and making connections outside personal experience—to subjects such as current events and social issues, history, science, politics, religion, the arts—and demonstrating fresh insight. CNF involves telling true stories about people and events using narrative techniques, with a careful attention to language. It rises above chronological description. The narrator is involved with the subject, and there is evidence of reflection in the work. Although the work usually involves the narrator's experience and opinions, the story should rise above the personal and speak to a larger truth. Readers want to learn; they also want to feel and care. This category should not be used to submit autobiography, life writing exercises, scholarly articles, research papers, book reviews, opinion pieces, rants, acts of revenge and other works that one of us might regret later, memoir that does not employ CNF techniques, and other work that doesn't fit this category. There are many markets for them, and no doubt we'll accept work from time to time that seems to defy our criteria, but this is where we stand right now.
Submit CNF for the contest at that link (during contest submission periods), not this one. Work should be double spaced, 12-point font, one-inch margins, with indented paragraphs. Pages should be numbered. We appreciate seeing the word count on the first page.
Please be sure to withdraw your work promptly if it is accepted by another publication.