Update 10/16: The Issue 24 reading period is officially closed and all responses have been sent! If you think you're still waiting to hear back, check your spam folder and your submission's status on Submittable (and if you still don't see a reply, you can reach out to AfterHappyHour@gmail.com). 

Our next reading period will be open from November 1st, 2024 through January 31st, 2025, when we be reading for two issues: 

• The 4th annual contest (print issue) 
• A new special issue focused on reprints from now-defunct markets (online issue)

We've selected our theme for the next contest: Food. We'll be looking for stories, essays, and poems where food is a core aspect of the work--as a central image or integral to the plot (cooking it, eating it, growing it, etc.), characters (cooks, servers, baking show contestants, etc.), or setting (restaurant, galley, canning factory, etc.). 

As with past years, we'll be looking for work from any and all genres, entry fee will be $10, and the prize will be based on a percentage of the total entries. More details will be available here and on our website when the contest opens 11/1!
 

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After Happy Hour is a free online literary journal that comes out twice a year online in winter and summer, with a print contest issue in the spring. We're not limited to any particular genre, and publish poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, visual art, and hybrids of any of the above. We're headquartered in Pittsburgh, and love to get work from folks who have a connection to the region, but the journal is not exclusive to Pittsburgh-based writers and artists--we've published stories, poems, and artwork from all over the world. If you want more insights into what we look for, we posted some wishlists and hard sells on our blog.

Our typical reading periods are: 

• March 1st-April 30th for the summer issue (released early August)
• July 1st-August 31st for the winter issue (released early December)
• November 1st-January 31st for the annual contest (print issue released in May)

Although time is wibbly-wobbly and these have been known to change (we'll update things here if they do).

For our online issues, we accept fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, visual art, photographs, graphic narratives, and any combination thereof. All contributors are paid $2.50 per printed page, with a minimum of $15 and a maximum of $50, on publication ($25 for our cover artist).

We have a few submission categories:

• Free general submissions (capped at 300 per month--we'll post an update if we hit that limit)
• $4 expedited submissions with a guaranteed response within 14 days of submission
• Feedback submissions for donations of any amount to our current target charity (currently the Persad Center)
• $3 tip jar submissions (open only when our free submissions fill up)

Entries for our contest are $10, and can be fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction.

As far as what we want from the work: Be bold and take risks, make an impact and make it early. AHH favors the audacious. If you want to get a sense of the type of work we publish, you can check out our past online issues free on our website. 

After Happy Hour requests first publication rights on acceptance for unpublished pieces, and one-time publication rights for reprints. For our online issues, we also ask for non-exclusive electronic archive rights and anthology rights, to potentially re-print your work in our annual print issue (of course, we will let you know if we do).  Authors and artists retain full ownership of their work and can do whatever else they want to with the work after publication (and if a piece we've published gets reprinted elsewhere, we'd love to hear about it so we can promote it to our readers, too! Especially if you've put out a collection, won an award, or some other exciting and cool thing).