Call for Submissions: Phylum Press Journal

 

We pay $10 to all authors accepted in our journals.

Deadline: June 30, 2026 

About the Journal

Phylum Press’ quarterly journal accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art of any subject. While we love to receive works that relate to each ISSUE’s theme, we do not preference those submissions over others.

NOTE – We only accept visual art which relates to the ISSUE’s theme. This relation can be as loose as you’d like, but it has to exist.

Each year, Phylum will choose 4 different species from a phylum within the natural world. These four species will be the names and inspiration for each ISSUE we publish during that year.

Current Phylum: Magnoliophyta

Magnoliophyta includes all forms (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of broad-leaved trees, shrubs and vines, and most aquatic plants.

Current ISSUE: Red Twig Dogwood

We’re looking for pieces that reflect the red twig dogwood; a plant that grows through winter, showing that even in the harshest of times, it can still beat the odds. We want pieces that reflect perseverance and strength!

Submissions are due June 30th.

Submission Rules 

Fiction/Creative Non-Fiction: up to 5,000 words
Poetry: up to five pages
Visual Art: up to five pieces

Simultaneous submissions are allowed. Phylum Press is made up of writers just like you, and we know how hard submitting can be. That being said, please only submit your original, unpublished work, without ANY AI involvement.

How to Submit

Please email submissions to:

phylumpress@gmail.com

with: Your work attached as a PDF file.
“SUBMISSION – [Last name, Title]” as the subject line.
The category/genre of your piece.
A 100 word author bio.
Confirmation that the piece is your own work, and you will inform us if it is published elsewhere.

NOTE – If we think your work is not quite there, we may offer you a conditional acceptance and request some edits. It is your right as an author to determine whether or not you want to take our suggestions, but refusing may impact whether the piece is accepted for publication.

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Rights of Passage": Conjunctions

 

The submission window for our Fall 2026 print issue, Conjunctions:86, Rights of Passage and Conjunctions Online will open on Friday, June 5th, and close a full month later at midnight on Friday, July 5th. All submissions will also be considered for our weekly online magazine, which is not subject to thematic restrictions.

How to Submit

Submissions will be accepted electronically via Submittable twice a year, during our fall and winter reading periods. Please check back here or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky or subscribe to our newsletter for the earliest information about our reading periods for each issue.

What to Submit

Conjunctions publishes short- and long-form fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid texts. We do not publish academic essays or book reviews.

All submissions must be in English and previously unpublished. We will consider works in translation for which the translator has secured the rights.

All work submitted to Conjunctions must be written entirely by a human author. Generative AI tools may not be used to write, draft or outline submitted content, with rare exception made for pieces that engage with the tool in an intentional, artistic, and transparent manner. While basic spell-checking and grammar tools are acceptable, any submission found to be partially or wholly generated by artificial intelligence will be rejected. Any use of AI in the creation of a piece must be disclosed in your submission.

Although we have no official restrictions regarding word count, most of the manuscripts we select for publication are under eight thousand words long. For poetry submissions, we suggest sending half a dozen poems, depending on length.

We strongly suggest that writers new to Conjunctions read our recent issues to acquaint themselves with our publications.

ACCESSING CONJUNCTIONS

Are you familiar with our work? Sign up for our newsletter to read new writing in our online magazine every week or order a print issue.

If a disability prevents you from using Submittable, please email info@conjunctions.com.

Fee

For writers with disabilities or other medical problems that are causing serious financial hardships, or similar hardships due to unemployment or other exigencies, Conjunctions is pleased to waive our $4 fee for work submitted through Submittable. Please note that this modest fee helps us pay for processing and operating costs.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: Hayduke Irish Lives!

 Hayduke Irish Lives! 

To submit to Hayduke Irish Lives!, send your work to:

haydukeirish@gmail.com

Submission guidelines:

Fiction:

12 pt font, double-spaced, up to 6500 words. No naming politicians.

The work should be satirical.

Do not name any politicians.

Poetry:

Will also accept poetry, but… like for real… It’s got to be funny.

Humorous Non-Fiction:

These are dangerous waters. I will not accept any non-fiction about any living political person. If you got something that doesn’t break that rule and is funny, I’d love to hear about it. 6500 words maximum.

Illustration:

I am specifically looking for fake advertisements that mock other real advertisements. Political cartoons are acceptable. However, name no politicians.

The idea is that this magazine will be clever. Please try to follow that particular instruction.

I’m aiming to have a one-month turnaround time. I will be offering $.01-.03 / word , $10 per illustration or poem. I will pay more for the feature and try to run a contest. The current contest pays $200 for the feature article, which will be chosen from fiction and non-fiction submissions.

I am targeting printing every other month starting in August, 2026.

I reserve the right to extend the deadline if not enough submissions are received.

If you want feedback, let me know in the submission email, and I’ll try.

You can pay me for dedicated feedback. This is entirely optional and not at all expected. It will not help or hurt your chances of publication.

WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS:

Satire (n.):

The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

This administration can’t take a joke. So I want to tell jokes that they won’t get. It won’t be that hard.

Satire is sneaky funny, so be sneaky funny. You may notice a particular trend above:

Name no politician.

We all know who you’re talking about. This is a clever magazine for clever people… so please be clever.

SUBMIT AT:

haydukeirish@gmail.com

We can’t wait to read your work.

–HD

Writing Competition: The Richard J. Margolis Award

Richard J. Margolis Award
For nonfiction writers of social-justice journalism

The Richard J. Margolis Award is given annually to a promising new journalist or essayist whose nonfiction work combines warmth, humor and wisdom and sheds light on issues of social justice.

​The award honors the life of Richard J. Margolis (1929-1991), a renowned journalist, essayist and poet who gave eloquent voice to the rural poor, migrant farmworkers, Native Americans, aging adults and others whose voices are seldom heard. He also wrote several books for children.

The award combines a one-month residency at Blue Mountain Center, an acclaimed writers' and artists' colony in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, with a $10,000 prize (effective with the 2025 award). Finalists receive $1,000.

How to Apply for the Richard J. Margolis Award

The winner of the annual Richard J. Margolis Award is announced in November, with the Blue Mountain Lake residency taking place in the following summer or fall.

Applications are accepted year round but must be received by July 1 for consideration for the current-year award. Applications received after this date will be considered for the award in the following year.

 Application Guidelines

Submit the following materials either as separate documents or combined into one or more documents as specified below:

A cover letter stating your interest in and qualifications for the award;

A project description of your current and anticipated work and what you will work on during your Blue Mountain residency;

A brief biographical note; and

Two to three samples of your work, published or unpublished, meeting the following criteria:

Nonfiction samples only (no fiction or poetry);

30 pages maximum; and

At least one sample being non-memoir material.

When submitting samples, please bear in mind the selection criteria for the Margolis Award. The award is designed to help developing journalists make progress on non-fiction writing projects that reflect important social values. The Selection Committee judges applications on the quality of the writing samples and the relevance and potential impact of the proposed project. Submitted samples should all be non-fiction pieces that give a clear indication of the applicant's ability to write well and apply journalistic skills effectively.

All materials may be emailed as PDF files (preferred!) to:

award@margolis.com 

Please name all files starting with your last name (e.g., Smith-cover letter+description.pdf, Smith-writing sample.pdf, etc.).

If submitting paper materials, mail them to the address below. Please note that we cannot return samples.

Richard J. Margolis Award

c/o Margolis & Bloom
20 William Street
Suite 320
Wellesley, MA 02481

More information here. 

Writing Competition: Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)3 organization based in Santa Barbara, California, hosts an annual poetry contest called the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards.

The awards contest is an annual series of awards to encourage poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit. The Poetry Awards include three age categories: Adult, Youth 13-18, and Youth 12 & Under.

The 2026 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards

Poetry has a way of moving us past facts and immersing us into an experience. The Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards encourages poets to do just that. There are three age categories: Adult, Youth 13-18, and Youth 12 & Under.

The deadline for entries is July 1, 2026.

The annual contest is open to people worldwide. Poems must be original, unpublished, and in English.

Deadline

Email your poem(s) in a Microsoft Word attachment (.doc or .docx) to:

cwarner@napf.org

Mail entries to:

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
David Krieger House
1622 Anacapa Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

All entries must be postmarked (or emailed) by July 1, 2026.

 Awards

Adult Winner – $1,000
Youth (13 to 18) Winner – $200
Youth (12 and under) Winner – $200

We may award Honorable Mentions in each category.

Entry Fee

Adults – $15 for up to three poems
Youth (13 to 18) – $5
Youth (12 and under) – no fee 

If submitting on paper, please make checks payable to Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Cash and money order are also accepted.

Judging

Judging will be done by a committee of poets selected by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Copies of the winning poems from previous years are available here.
Winners

Winners and Honorable Mentions will be announced by October 15th, 2026 on the NAPF website. Winners will be notified by email and/or mail. Past years’ winning poems can be found here. 

More information and payment portals here.

Call for Submissions: Thin Places

Thin Places invites submissions of new, unpublished writing which explores the intersection of place, space and the sacred. While this might usually involve geographical places, other interpretations of the theme are also welcome. Please check back for occasional themed calls.

Please submit up to three poems of any length, or one piece of fiction or creative nonfiction of up to 2000 words. Simultaneous submissions are welcome – please inform us if a piece is accepted elsewhere and you wish to withdraw it.

Submissions should be accompanied by a short biographical note. If you would like to submit an original image or photograph with your submission you are welcome to do so, in the body of the Word document.

All rights remain with the original poets and authors. In the future we may produce print anthologies and will contact you if we wish to include your pieces published here. Currently, the journal will publish an edition bi-monthly available online here at Thin Places. The second issue will be published in July 2026.

We are sorry not to offer payment currently. We hope to revisit this in the future, funds permitting.

All submissions should be via DUOSOMA – submissions for Issue Two will close on June 25th. We’ll generally do our best to respond within a month, after which you are welcome to raise a query with the editors.

If you would like to read more. you might like to look at the poetry anthology THIN PLACES & SACRED SPACES, published by Amethyst Press, our sister-publication.

Call for Submissions: Prairie Fire

For General Submissions: Prairie Fire accepts ONE submission per category (Poetry, Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction) every twelve months. Once you have submitted, please wait twelve months before submitting to General Submissions again.

Deadline: June 30, 2026 

Poems: A maximum of 5 poems per submission.

Maximum word count for Fiction and Non-Fiction: 10,000 words.

Prairie Fire only accepts original, previously unpublished work.

We do not accept work that utilizes AI (artificial intelligence), algorithmic, machine-learning, or computer-generated text of any sort.

We ask that you let us know if your work is also submitted elsewhere, and, if it is accepted, to notify us right away.

Your submission should be typed (double-spaced) on one side of the page only (snail mail). Poetry may be single-spaced.

Left and right margins of at least 1 inch, and top and bottom margins of at least 1 inch.

Each page of poetry must contain your name and address at the top left.

For fiction and creative non-fiction, centre the title halfway down on the first page, with your name below it. Include a word count at the top right corner of the first page and your address at the top left corner. Make sure your pages are numbered.

A maximum of 5 poems per submission.

Maximum word count for Fiction and Non-Fiction: 10,000 words.

Please do not send multiple submissions simultaneously.

PRINT RATES

Prose: $0.10 per word
Poetry: $40 per poem

FICTION:
Short fiction, excerpts from longer works: maximum fee $250 

ARTICLES, CREATIVE NON-FICTION, EDITORIALS, ESSAYS, MEMOIRS:
Maximum fee $250

INTERVIEWS, PROFILES:
Maximum fee subject: $75; interviewer: $125

OTHER PROSE:
Correspondence, notes, plays, scripts, etc.: maximum fee $50

VISUAL ART RATES
FRONT COVER: $100 for reprint rights
ILLUSTRATIONS, PORTFOLIOS: $25 per page for reprint rights

ONLINE RATES
INTERVIEWS: $0.10 per word: maximum fee subject $75; interviewer $100

Submit your work here.