Fiction - Free General Submissions
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New as of the Issue 31 reading period (July 2026): Fiction consistently makes up well over half of our total submission volume. Which isn't a problem in itself--we love fiction! But we also have an upper cap on how many free submissions we can take each month, and in recent reading periods fiction writers have gobbled up roughly two-thirds of them, leaving poets, essayists, and artists scrounging for the scraps. Because of that, we're capping free fiction submissions at 150 per month this reading period, in an effort to bring balance to the slush pile.
Submit in standard manuscript format (11- or 12-point Serif font, 1" margins, etc.). We read blind, so please also remove all identifying information from your file. If you write short (under 1,000 words) you can send up to 3 stories in a single document. Otherwise, send one story at a time and wait until you hear back to send another.
There is no hard word count, but the longer the story, the more it needs to justify its real estate--if your story is 8,000 words, do a close read to make sure it's not actually a fluffy, shaggy 6,000-word story (and, if it is, the more streamlined version will have a much better shot of getting accepted).
Please double-space all prose longer than 1,000 words. Flash and micro pieces, or longer works that use non-traditional forms (e.g. stories told in columns, in bullet points, as comment sections of blogs, etc.) can be single- or double-spaced at your discretion.
We're looking for stories we can't put down (and can't stop thinking about after we do) from any and all genres, including literary fiction as well as all subgenres of sci-fi, fantasy, horror/thriller, mystery/crime, and any other niche subgenres that don't fit into one of those categories. Whether your story is 2 pages or 20 pages, it should be complete and excised of all scaffolding, filler, and darlings. We like weird, surreal, and absurd--just make sure you actually have a story, not only a cool idea. Aside from that, we want the same stuff every journal asks for: strong characters, consistent voice, and compelling conflict.
Files in this category should not contain images. If you use illustrations or work in a hybrid visual medium, submit under the "Comics and Graphic Narratives" category.
Note on fonts: We've gotten some submissions apologizing that their computer doesn't have a font called "Serif"--and that's true, because isn't the name of a specific font! Here's a full explanation of what "serif" means, but the tl;dr version is that a Serif font is something like Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia, or anything in that ballpark.