Update 4/16: We have officially maxed out on our free submission slots for April! Expedited submissions will remain open through the end of the reading period on 4/30.
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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 late July or 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 a $10 honorarium 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're nearing that limit)
- $4 Tip Jar submissions, which get you an expedited response (within 14 days of submission)
- Feedback submissions for donations of any amount to our current target charity
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After Happy Hour requests first publication rights on acceptance for unpublished pieces, and one-time publication rights for reprints.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 rights to their pieces 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 very exciting and cool thing).
Expedited submissions have a guaranteed response time. Within 14 days or fewer, you will get a response of accepted, declined, or short-listed, which means we are seriously considering your work and it will be our first priority at our next editorial discussion. If you get the "short-listed" response, we'll let you know a date for when you'll hear back and usually also share some feedback-style details about what we like, what we don't, and how many votes the piece currently has for and against it.
As usual, we read blind so please remove all identifying information from your submission. Our more specific genre guidelines:
Prose (Fiction/Creative Non-Fiction): Submit 1 piece of 1,000 words or more, or up to 3 flash/micro pieces of 1,000 words or fewer, in a single document. Double-space all pieces longer than 1,000 words. Shorter works can be single- or double-spaced at your discretion.
Poetry: Send up to 3 poems in a single document.
Suites: Send a series of 3-6 pieces, up to 10 pages, to be considered as a unit. Works can be poetry, fiction, non-fiction, visual art, or any combination thereof.
Comics and Graphic Narratives: For 1-2 page works, you can send up to 5 in a single submission. For works longer than 2 pages, send one at a time in a single document.
Visual Art: Send up to 5 images in a single submission.