Submission Sunday 3.8.26
Oxford American, Fractured Lit, Mouthful of Salt, Pittsburg State University, Soft Focus Zine, THREE, Beaver Magazine, and Hedgebrook
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 Oxford American, Fractured Lit, Mouthful of Salt, Pittsburg State University, Soft Focus Zine, THREE, Beaver Magazine, and Hedgebrook. More details below.
Oxford American Call for Pitches (“Home” – Deadline April 3)
What makes a place feel like home? Is it an inbuilt connection to the land? Fond memories of a childhood bedroom or family table? A sense of pride and shared community?
We want stories about how an idea of a home can change when you leave it, whether by choice or by force. We wonder how our domestic lives—our messy rooms, our packed closets, our dustless collections—reflect or inform the social life of the South. We welcome meditations on homesickness, personal histories of home-making, and polemics against a “home sweet home.” We would love to read critiques of domestic architecture, investigations of threatened ecological homelands, and reports from neighborhoods affected by ICE raids. Where are your second homes, your spiritual homes, and how do they thrive? No subject is too great or small, no setting too famous or too obscure, so long as the story is fresh. We learned long ago to follow our writers’ passions.
Fractured Lit Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize (Deadline April 19)
Fractured Lit is looking for stories of ghosts, fables, and fractured fairy tales in 1,000 words or fewer. Whichever tradition you choose, make sure you find a new way to approach it, to twist and discombobulate it, to push us away from the mundane and into the strange or uncanny. Transport us from the here and now to a new land of discovery, where specific characters take on unique challenges inspired by these tropes. This contest produces some of the most imaginative submissions each year, and we look forward to reading your creations!
Guest Judge Melissa Llanes Brownlee will choose three prize winners from a shortlist. We’re excited to offer the winner of this prize $3,000 and publication, while the second- and third-place winners will receive publication and $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.
Mouthful of Salt Call for Submissions (Deadline March 13)
For Issue 03, we’re drawn to work that understands flavor as more than a metaphor. We want writing that carries heat, density, and residue. Send us your poems, stories, and hybrid pieces that are seasoned with tension, rich with voice, and brined with memory. It’s free to submit, always.
Mouthful of Salt accepts poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, hybrid work, and visual art. We’re drawn to pieces that are beautifully messy, intimate, nontraditional, and hard to categorize—work that pushes boundaries and invites deep attention. Above all, we seek to uplift voices from marginalized communities.
Cow Creek Chapbook Prize (Deadline May 15)
Submissions are now open for the 2026 Cow Creek Chapbook Prize, a national poetry chapbook contest brought to you by Pittsburg State University. We welcome work in all styles and on all subjects. As long as the poems challenge and capture the imagination, we want to read them.
The winning poet will receive a $1,000 prize and 25 author copies of their published chapbook.
Fuck You, Write Your Pages: An Online Accountability Group led by Edan Lepucki (March 16–June 15, 2026)
This asynchronous group communicates via a private newsletter. Weekly emails include wisdom from working writers and members are required to post updates on goals met and made. Membership also includes three optional Study Hall Zoom sessions. Reach your goals and deepen your creative practice in a supportive community. Open to writers of all genres and skill levels. $125.
📚 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. 📚
Soft Focus Zine Call for Submissions (“Tearjerkers” – Deadline May 1)
We are a print zine publication looking to foster a community where people can share their love for movies through writing and art. We are interested in the process of sharing ideas through tangible means and creating a physical object that can be held, shared, lost, found, framed, ripped, etc.
We hope to create an accessible space that is enjoyable for folks with all different levels of filmic knowledge and experience. Whether you only watch films made in the 1930s or love to preach about rom coms, we want to hear from you!
We are excited to open submissions for Issue 02 of our zine on the theme of TEARJERKERS. Tell us about the movies that make you cry: from grief, joy, nostalgia, hilarity, irony, beauty, anger; feel free to interpret the theme in whatever way makes sense to you.
THREE Call for Submissions (“Boundless” – Deadline March 31)
Boundless heart. Boundless vision. Boundless voice. Bound-ary-less rights to dignity and safety and peace. Themed issues, three pieces per issue. Just enough to say something and say it well. Just enough to see yourself in others’ stories and then have the space to find yourself in your own. Third Rail Press was created to give women the opportunity to tell the untold stories of their lives.
Beaver Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline April 22)
Beaver Magazine is a literary journal accepting poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art! We love works of any kind. You won’t find a strict, gatekeeping submission guideline in these waters. Writing and reading is for peace, not stress. Our editors met in undergrad poetry workshops and loved each other so much we had to start a flourishing project together. Our editors were unified by the beautiful discovery of creative writing’s impact on all of our souls. After being separated by space and time and forking paths, we woke up one morning and started this journal to be able to read and enjoy writing and art together again. We hope that you enjoy immersing yourself in our dam website. Take a load off, throw that tree you’ve been gnawing to the side, and swim in these waterways of words from around the world.
Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence Program Call for Applicants (Deadline April 17)
Hedgebrook’s Writer-in-Residence Program supports writers from all over the world for residencies of two to three weeks. Hedgebrook’s mission is to support visionary women-identified writers,18 and older, whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. The cottage, all meals, and the entire residency experience at Hedgebrook is free to selected writers. Travel is not included and is the responsibility of the writer to arrange and pay for. Up to six writers can be in residence at a time, each housed in their own handcrafted cottage. They spend their days in solitude – writing, reading, taking walks in the woods on the property or on nearby Double Bluff beach. In the evenings, “The Gathering” is a social time for residents to connect and share over their freshly prepared meals.
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.
Stillhouse Press Call for Nonfiction Manuscripts (Deadline March 10)
The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize (Deadline March 13)
Version Originale Call for Submissions (“Hunger” – Deadline March 15)
The Other Almanac Call for Submissions (Deadline March 20)
Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest (Deadline March 31)
The Masters Review Prize for New Narratives (Deadline March 31)
Palette Poetry 2026 Rising Poet Prize (Deadline April 12)
Outskirts Literary Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline April 18)
Redivider Call for Submissions (Deadline 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.
