Submission Sunday 4.5.26
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Paramount, The Rumpus, Spotify, The Gotham Guillotine, CRAFT, Kismet, and Prairie Ronde
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 McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Paramount, The Rumpus, Spotify, The Gotham Guillotine, CRAFT, Kismet, and Prairie Ronde. More details below.
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency Call for Submissions
All of the satire and comedy we publish on this website comes from complete strangers such as yourselves. While we remain small and irresponsible and afflicted with mold-borne allergies, we do our best to respond to all submissions quickly and professionally. That said, there are a number of things you can do to further enhance and streamline the experience for yourselves and for your friendly McSweeney’s Internet Tendency editorial staff, which since 2007 has been mostly run by one person out of a living room in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. See guidelines for Timely Submissions, Lists, Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond, and Reviews of New Food.
Paramount Writers Mentoring Program (Deadline May 1)
Paramount’s Writers Mentoring Program offers an eight-month opportunity for writers. It focuses on building relationships, improving writing skills, and developing essential interpersonal and industry “soft skills.” For over two decades the Paramount Writers Mentoring Program has helped emerging writers enter the television business, launching more than 125 writing careers. Alumni include over 20 showrunners and executive producers.
Participants in the program will work with executive mentors from Paramount to create a new writing sample. Weekly workshop-style meetings will be held for 16 weeks, featuring showrunners and industry professionals such as agents, managers, and executives. Mentees will also have the opportunity to participate in a half-day mock writers room experience in a supportive setting. Each participant will have help in creating a rigorous career action plan and there will be on-going support in evaluating and achieving those goals. Another important benefit of the program is the development of a close-knit peer support group that will sustain participants through the program and beyond, as well as a supportive and vibrant alumni community. [Note: Sharing this opportunity does not indicate support for the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.]
The Rumpus Initiatives: Harnisch Microgrants, Writing Fellowships, and Editorial Fellowships (Deadline April 30)
The Rumpus will host two Harnisch microgrant cycles each year, where we award ten (10) writers a microgrant of $1,000 + a technology package (Macbook Neo, a pair of Airpod Pro 3, and a 1-year subscription to Apple Creator Studio). These microgrants are designed to help writers who need material support to further or finish a creative writing project. The microgrants are unrestricted and grantees may use the funds as they see fit.
The Rumpus Writing Fellowships will offer two writers a year a $10,000 stipend and mentorship to write two pieces of fiction or creative nonfiction to be published on The Rumpus during the course of the fellowship. This fellowship is open to emerging writers who have not published a book and have five (5) or fewer essay or story publications. This is a remote position and fellows can participate from anywhere.
The Rumpus Editorial Fellowships will offer two six-month editorial fellowships a year with a stipend of $12,000 and editorial mentorship for candidates who are interested in the practice of literary editing. Fellows will be expected to work 20 hours a week, and the stipend will be paid monthly. Duties include reading and responding to Rumpus submissions and each fellow will have the opportunity to develop an editorial feature of their choosing.
Spotify Audiobook Selects Call for Romance Novellas (Deadline April 30)
The next chapter is yours to write. Spotify Audiobook Selects is a new publishing program offering indie authors professional audio production, upfront payment, promotion, and distribution to Spotify listeners around the world. Twice a year, Spotify Audiobooks Selects will request manuscripts around a specific theme.
We’re looking to fall in love. For our current theme, we’re calling all swoon-worthy tropes: Enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine, fake marriage, falling in love with your sibling’s best friend, and any other of your juicy favorites! Send us your on-theme, new adult or adult romance novellas between 10,000 and 40,000 words. No erotica or children’s content, please.
Deep Dive Into Dialogue: A Master Class on the Art of What People Say with Karen E. Bender (Saturday, April 11, 12 pm EST)
In this class, we’ll do a detailed look into how dialogue reveals character, and how to give your dialogue more urgency. We’ll look at dialogue and emotion, how to combine dialogue and gesture, rants, situation and dialogue. We’ll examine stories by John Cheever, Ernest Hemingway, JD Salinger, Edward P. Jones, Rebecca Lee, Roz Chast, ZZ Packer. Then we’ll do some exercises, practicing dialogue in a variety of contexts. $150.
📚 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 Gotham Guillotine Call for Submissions (“The People’s Magazine” – Deadline May 8)
The Gotham Guillotine is not the place for staid sloganeering, liberal pessimism, or literary bootlickers. There’s enough of that shit already. We want to revolutionize socialist realism, pioneer socialist surrealism, eviscerate capitalist literary conventions, and stuff the ivory tower full of TNT.
Every issue of The Gotham Guillotine will trigger an uprising. Barricades of print issues will be formed minutes after publication. We expect to be the most popular literary magazine in America, if not the world, before you can say fully automated luxury communism. Nothing can damper our revolutionary optimism. Pessimistic punks, fuck off.
No one’s dared to wage the twenty-first century class war through literature, but history is only made by those who dare. We’re gonna change the world. Are you?
2026 CRAFT Award for Excellence (Deadline April 12)
CRAFT’s mission since day one has been to explore how writing works and to celebrate the art of prose. With that goal in mind, we are introducing the CRAFT Award for Excellence, honoring the very best in each of our creative prose genres: Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Fiction, and Flash Creative Nonfiction.
Each genre will award one winner the CRAFT Award for Excellence, selected by CRAFT’s editors; these winners will receive a $1,000 prize, online publication, reMarkable Paper Pro tablet & set up, and a CRAFT plaque commemorating your win. Two editors’ choice selections from any genre will receive $500 and online publication.
Show off your setting skills, dazzle us with snappy dialogue, render us spellbound with your lyricism. Whatever your craft, our only requirement is excellence.
Kismet is a new literary magazine offering a fresh perspective on spirituality, religion, and mysticism for seekers and skeptics alike. Kismet isn’t tied to any particular tradition or spiritual outlook. Instead, the magazine aims to make space for diverging voices to pursue new ways of speaking to our longing for transcendence.
We’re living through a period of profound transformation, as the longstanding fonts of meaning and spiritual nourishment dry up and new visions emerge. Kismet will chase the spirit of the moment, offering a new forum for an ancient conversation, publishing emerging and established voices from around the world.
Prairie Ronde Artist Residency Call for Applications (Vicksburg, Michigan – Deadline June 15 for Fall Session)
Prairie Ronde is an artist residency and gallery rooted in place, process, and transformation. It exists at the intersection of creative expression and adaptive reuse, offering artists the opportunity to engage deeply with an area undergoing a massive transformation.
Over time, Prairie Ronde has grown into a highly competitive residency, widely respected for its place-based approach and commitment to artists. Today, the program attracts applications from established national and international artists.
We’re looking for individuals who are highly independent, engaged and curious. We do not limit our residency to any specific medium, but rather are looking for diverse artists who can creatively interact with The Mill. We host three sessions annually and accept 2–4 residents per session. Accepted residents receive a stipend of $2,000 for 5–6 weeks, a $500 travel grant and private housing. We work with residents to share their work with the community (a gallery show, public workshop or other).
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 2026 Rising Poet Prize (Deadline April 12)
Journal of Fandom Studies Call for Pitches (“Heated Rivalry” – Deadline April 13)
Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence Program Call for Applicants (Deadline April 17)
Outskirts Literary Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline April 18)
Fractured Lit Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize (Deadline April 19)
Beaver Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline April 22)
Redivider Call for Submissions (Deadline April 30)
Soft Focus Zine Call for Submissions (“Tearjerkers” – Deadline May 1)
American Literary Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 2)
Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (Deadline May 4)
Cow Creek Chapbook Prize (Deadline May 15)
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.
Thank you for sharing our call for submissions! 🤩🤩🤩