Submission Sunday 5.26.24
ZYZZYVA, University of Georgia Press, Barrelhouse, Epiphany, The John D. Voelker Foundation, swamp pink, Voyage YA by Uncharted Magazine, and DeFiore & Company
Happy Sunday, writers! Thank you for subscribing. Every other Sunday, you’ll receive eight literary submission opportunities, varying in audience and genre, that have been selected for quality and relevance.
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This edition of Submission Sunday has calls and contests from ZYZZYVA, University of Georgia Press, Barrelhouse, Epiphany, The John D. Voelker Foundation, swamp pink, Voyage YA by Uncharted Magazine, and DeFiore & Company. More details below.
Reflecting the values that make San Francisco a cultural beacon, ZYZZYVA publishes a literary journal defined by its risk-taking and egalitarianism, and by its focus on inclusivity and excellence.
With each issue, ZYZZYVA offers a meaningful consideration of the most urgent ethical concerns of our time, in part via themed issues on topics ranging from resistance, the border, and art to the environment, labor, and technology. We create substantial space for poetry, nonfiction, interviews, fiction, and art from an array of voices, resulting in a lively, thoughtful conversation in print, online, and in-person, across genres and generations, answering the need for a unique kind of engagement. (Note: ZYZZYVA only accepts submissions by mail.)
University of Georgia Press Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (Deadline May 31)
A prize of $1,000 and publication by University of Georgia Press is given annually for a collection of short fiction. More than seventy short-story collections have appeared in the Flannery O’Connor Award series, which was established to encourage gifted emerging writers by bringing their work to a national readership. The first prize-winning book was published in 1983; the award has since become an important proving ground for writers and a showcase for the talent and promise that have brought about a resurgence in the short story as a genre.
Winners are selected through an annual competition that attracts as many as three hundred manuscripts. Submissions are open from April 1 to May 31 each year. Lori Ostlund will judge. Winners of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction include such widely read authors as Ha Jin, Antonya Nelson, Rita Ciresi, and Mary Hood.
Barrelhouse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31 or Submission Cap)
Barrelhouse is an independent non-profit literary organization. We are not affiliated with a university or writing program. Barrelhouse is produced by writers for readers who are looking for quality writing with an edge and a sense of humor. Barrelhouse bridges the gap between serious art and pop culture.
Barrelhouse is a biannual print journal featuring fiction, poetry, interviews, and essays about music, art, and the detritus of popular culture. Barrelhouse is a web site that regularly posts new short fiction, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, book reviews, and other literary things. Barrelhouse is a small press that puts out roughly two books a year. Thanks for thinking of us as a home for your work! Unsolicited submissions are the fossil fuel that keeps the Barrelhouse moped puttering along on the side of the literary highway.
Epiphany Call for Submissions (Deadline July 8)
Epiphany is a semiannual print and online literary journal and an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) that supports practicing writers at every stage of their careers. During our open reading periods, we consider every submission seriously. For 20 years, we have published work that transcends convention and demonstrates literary mastery.
Our name derives from the Joycean idea that an epiphany is the moment when “the soul of the commonest object… seems to us radiant.” Like the semicolon in our logo, an epiphany is a pause followed by a shift. Like the semicolon, an epiphany can consist of a confluence between two ideas. Like the semicolon, an epiphany is both a part of language and outside of it.
So send us your best work. Work that both resists and embraces language. Work that draws connections where we never thought to look. Work that evokes or examines or simply mirrors for us this strange condition of being human. Fill us up; leave us wondering.
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John D. Voelker Foundation Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing Award (Deadline May 31)
The John D. Voelker Foundation and the American Museum of Fly Fishing (AMFF) are pleased to announce that submissions are now being accepted for the 2024 Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing Award (the Traver Award). The award is named after Robert Traver, pen name for the late John Voelker, author of Trout Madness, Trout Magic, Anatomy of a Fisherman, the 1958 best seller Anatomy of a Murder, and the historical novel Laughing Whitefish.
A prize of $2,500 and publication in American Fly Fisher as well as on the John D. Voelker Foundation and the American Museum of Fly Fishing websites will be given annually for a short story or an essay that “embodies the implicit love of fly fishing…and the natural world in which it takes place.”
swamp pink Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Formerly known as Crazyhorse, swamp pink publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction semi-monthly online. Our aim is to continue publishing exceptional work from writers at all stages of their careers. We are particularly interested in submissions from writers of color and writers from marginalized and underrepresented communities.
Poems receive $40 each, and we pay $0.05 a word for prose. Maximum payout for accepted work is $200. Submissions of fiction and nonfiction can be up to 7,500 words in length. We have published exceptional work that falls outside this range, but it is an unusual occurrence. For poetry, please submit a set of 3-6 poems.
Voyage YA by Uncharted Magazine Through the Looking Glass Challenge (Deadline May 30)
For this 20-day challenge, Voyage YA by Uncharted is looking for young adult fiction that reinvents reality. Whether your work takes us all the way to another world or simply holds a warped mirror up to the ordinary, we want to see writing that contorts existence into something new, something we’ve never seen before. It’s not magic, it’s surreality, so send us your mind-bending work that twists the fabric of reality into a new shape!
Since August of 2021, Uncharted Magazine has been a premier publisher of short fiction and the newest platform from the team behind The Masters Review, CRAFT, Fractured Lit, and The Voyage Journal. We seek stories that provide a thrilling escape, a surprising new world, or a brain-twisting mystery.
DeFiore & Company Open to Queries
DeFiore and Company is always looking for exciting, fresh, new talent to add to our list of successful authors. We are currently accepting queries for both fiction and non-fiction titles. Please be advised that we do not represent original screenplays, teleplays, or theater plays.
Here’s a reminder of the deadlines coming up from previous posts. Please note that archived posts might also include calls that are open year-round. If you sign up for Substack Notes, I also post deadline reminders there. If you submit to any of the Submission Sunday calls and publish or win, let me know and I’ll broadcast your success in a future post.
The Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers (Deadline May 27)
Kweli Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline May 30)
Hooligan Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline May 30)
AGNI Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Postcard Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Presence Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Cincinnati Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
3Elements Literary Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Sonder Magazine Call for Submissions (“Need” – Deadline May 31)
Mineral School Artists Residency (Mineral, Washington – Deadline May 31)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (Deadline June 15)
Uncharted Magazine Cinematic Short Story Contest (Deadline June 16)
The MacGuffin Call for Submissions (Deadline June 30)
Bellevue Literary Review Call for General Submissions, 2025 Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, 2025 Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction, and 2025 John & Eileen Allman Prize for Poetry (Deadline July 1)