wanted: your great literature!
We are open for our annual contests! Send great work!
(Non-contest submissions will reopen in December, with a week or so of free submissions to start.)
Generally, all accepted authors are paid, and all non-contest submissions are considered for our $200 Staff Choice Award: an accepted submission chosen by our staff as best embodying two things we love and respect about writing: stylistic ambition and social engagement. One author each issue will receive this award, announced with the issue's release (usually in May).
As always: we hope to read your very best, we're excited to read it, and we want more, we hope for more, we quietly plead for/demand more. Simply: we love great literature (entirely conceived of and composed by human beings--no AI, at all), especially literature that is urgent and/or strange, and we love all voices, be they new, emerging, or established - certainly those from underrepresented groups. We always put samples from past issues on our homepage if you'd like to get a sense of our sensibilities.
Note: Submissions are being read for our spring 2027 issue. They must be previously unpublished, and simultaneous submissions are totally fine (but please withdraw accepted pieces immediately; the lack of this practice has increased far too much for us lately). Only one submission (in any genre) at a time.
other notes:
- our two dollar fee helps us to pay all our authors, at least $40 per writer;
- usually we have free submission windows in early Dec and May;
- and during most of June/July, we're happy to provide free submissions to any authors who self-identify as being from underrepresented or minoritized communities or simply can't afford the $2 fee. Just email our editor at sbernard (at) laverne (dot) edu for more information;
- excepting the student contest, current students and employees of the University of La Verne are not eligible to submit.
- we are not Prism International, a fantastic journal in Canada.
Happy submitting, and feel free to visit/like our Facebook page
Deadline: midnight Nov 30 Prize: $250 and publication
Length: up to 7,000 words; can be one single story or linked microstories. Multiple submissions accepted.
Judge: Sean Bernard
Sean Bernard directs the BA Creative Writing Program at the University of La Verne. His story collectionDesert sonorous was awarded the 2014 Juniper Prize, his novelStudies in the Hereafterwas published in 2015 by Red Hen Press, and he’s the recipient of a prose fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. His second novel,Can Writing Be Taught & Other Novel Ideas, will be published by What Books in Fall 2026.
We follow CLMP guidelines. Entries are judged anonymously, so please exclude identifying information on the manuscript. All entries are considered for publication, and all domestic entrants get issue #29 (international entrants receive PDFs of issues 28 & 29). The issue will be excellent!
Winners announced spring 2027.
Deadline: midnight Nov 30
Prize: $250 and publication
Length: 1-5 poems, ten pages max. Multiple submissions accepted.
Judge: Sara Ellen Fowler
Sara Ellen Fowler’s first book, Two Signatures (University of Utah Press, 2024), was selected by Joan Naviyuk Kane as the winner of the Agha Shahid Ali Prize. Her work has been published in The Offing, Poetry Daily, Cream City Review, X-TRA, and Gigantic Sequins, among others. A recipient of a 2023 California Arts Council Emerging Individual Artist Fellowship, she holds a BFA in fine art from Art Center College of Design and an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside.
We follow CLMP guidelines. Entries are judged anonymously, so please exclude identifying information from the document. All entries will be considered for publication (non-winning poems have also been published), and all domestic entrants will get issue #29 (international entrants will receive PDFs of issues 28 & 29). The issue will be excellent!
Winners announced spring 2027.