Submission Sunday 2.8.26
Ploughshares, The Coachella Review, The Rumpus, Brink Literary Journal, Faber Action! Prize, Syncopation Literary Journal, The Masters Review, and Writing Between the Vines
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.
Submission Sunday relies on the support of paying subscribers. If you enjoy this newsletter, please consider an upgrade! I’m planning some additional online events available to paid subscribers as well as the usual benefits: craft essays by writers, interviews with published authors about their submission process, interviews with editors about what they’re looking for, round-ups of articles about submitting and writing in general, and full access to the archives.
This edition of Submission Sunday has calls and contests from Ploughshares, The Coachella Review, The Rumpus, Brink Literary Journal, Faber Action! Prize, Syncopation Literary Journal, The Masters Review, and Writing Between the Vines. More details below.
Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest (Deadline March 31)
Since 1971, Ploughshares has been committed to promoting the work of up-and-coming writers. In the spirit of the journal’s founding mission, the Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest recognizes work by an emerging writer in each of three genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We consider authors “emerging” if they haven’t published or self-published a book in any of the contest genres.
One winner in each genre per year will receive $2,000 and publication in Ploughshares. The winners will also receive a conversation with our partnering literary agency, Aevitas Creative Management, regarding their work and writing careers. The 2026 contest judges are Crystal Hana Kim in fiction, T Bambrick in poetry, and Melissa Febos in nonfiction.
The Coachella Review Call for Submissions (Deadline March 7)
Welcome to The Coachella Review—a literary arts journal nestled in the Coachella Valley, but with an eye towards writers and readers around the globe. As a vibrant online multimedia magazine, TCR is free to all and aims to showcase the best of what is possible on the web, where visual and auditory arts can coexist with poetry and prose in lively ways that enrich the reader’s interaction with a magazine. Located close to Los Angeles, we also have a keen interest in screenplays and one-act plays, and a relationship with the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Basically, if you can imagine it and make it, we are probably interested in checking it out! Our only criteria is quality. Knock us over, because that’s why we’re here.
The Rumpus Call for Submissions
The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. We publish new work five days a week. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us look deeper.
Over our 15 year history, the writing we’ve published has been nominated for and won many of the major literary awards and prizes including inclusion in numerous Best American anthologies, Best of the Net best of lists, the PEN Robert J. Dau Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and more. Frequently, work that debuts in the magazine ends up in anthologies and book collections of all sorts or becomes a part of an author’s first book. We are proud to help shape the work of thousands of authors throughout our existence and help them find their audience.
Brink Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing 2026 (Deadline February 28)
Brink is a non-profit independent publisher of hybrid writing. Through our publications, Brink Literary Journal and Brink Books, we create space in the literary world for hybrid, cross-genre, and unclassified works by emerging and established writers and artists. At Brink, we actively work to engage, promote, and expand the reach of voices from diverse groups and communities.
The contest is open to all writers and artists who identify their work as hybrid or cross-genre in nature. Hybrid writing often includes multiple mediums such as visual and written elements that together accomplish a result impossible to achieve alone. Text-based hybrid writing harnesses form and content in singular ways to create dynamic work primed to offer new perspectives, voices, and ideas. Hybrid writing is not experimental or ekphrastic. Instead, it is a style that prioritizes the combination of multiple literary and artistic elements to produce a readable, engaging piece of work.
📚 Every other week, I’ll be making space for up to three online writing classes or programs (and the occasional retreat or conference). Learn more about getting your own classified ad. 📚
The Faber Action! Prize (Deadline February 27)
In 2024, Faber launched the Action! Prize with Film & TV Producer Eddie Gamarra in direct response to research from the National Literacy Trust that revealed children’s reading enjoyment was at its lowest level in almost two decades.
The prize is open to writers in the UK, Ireland, US and now Canada, calling for fast-paced and filmic stories in one of three categories: YOUNG FICTION for 6-8 years (such as Dave Pigeon), GRAPHIC NOVELS for 6-14 years (such as Peng & Spanners) and ACTION ADVENTURE for 9-12 years (such as Alex Rider and the Gone series). The winner will receive a publishing offer, and Faber will consider offering publishing deals to runners up, depending on the submissions.
Syncopation Literary Journal Call for Submissions (“Dreams & Fantasy” – Deadline March 5)
Syncopation Literary Journal seeks to amalgamate the realms of music and literature. Syncopation is a free online, open-access journal. We are currently seeking poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction for Volume 5, Issue 2, to be published on the website in June 2026.
The theme of Volume 5, Issue 2 is Dreams & Fantasy. Music has the power to stir our emotions more than any other medium. Music may be tied to our hopes and aspirations. It can also take us to worlds beyond our imaginations. Syncopation wants your music-themed poetry and prose that relates to dreams, phantasmagoria, and/or to the genre of fantasy.
The Masters Review Prize for New Narratives (Deadline March 31)
For writers who challenge convention, The Masters Review Prize for New Narratives is calling. With this contest, The Masters Review will celebrate stories that push boundaries and subvert expectations, that experiment with form, voice, and point-of-view, that demonstrate an innovative approach to storytelling. We are not looking for the traditional or the conventional. Instead, we want to read your metafiction, your fragmented narratives, your stories in second person, your nonlinear essays. The Masters Review Prize for New Narratives will make space for narratives that may not find a home in other journals. Whatever your story, we want to see it in its most daring and authentic form.
Three finalists will be chosen by Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction. The grand-prize winner will earn a $3,000 prize along with publication and a two-year subscription to Duotrope. Second- and third-place finalists will receive $300 and $200 respectively, along with publication.
Writing Between the Vines Vineyard Retreats for Writers (Sonoma County, California – Deadline February 11)
Writing Between the Vines offers writers a space to work, a place to create, surrounded by the beauty and majesty of vineyards. Funded through application fees and in partnership with wineries, Writing Between the Vines provides writers the time to focus on works in progress or cultivate new ideas in residencies of up to one week in length at no charge.
Here’s a reminder of the deadlines coming up from previous posts. Hot tips:
If you go into the archives and revisit posts from this time of year during previous years, you’ll find additional calls that are open annually.
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.
Palette Poetry 2025-26 Rejected Poetry Prize (Deadline February 9)
The Tin House Summer Writers Workshop Is Back as the MWC Oregon Summer Workshop (Portland, Oregon – Deadline February 9)
The Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline February 15)
2026 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition (Deadline February 22)
The Edinburgh Writing Awards: Short Story, Novel, Young Adult Novel, and Essay (Deadline February 28)
Stillhouse Press Call for Nonfiction Manuscripts (Deadline March 10)
The Other Almanac Call for Submissions (Deadline March 20)
Redivider Call for Submissions (Opens January 1 through April 30)
Kweli Call for Submissions (Deadline May 30)
AGNI Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
*This newsletter does not guarantee the unimpeachable behavior of all venues shared here but the odds are good.
