Submission Sunday 6.14.26
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Image, Ploughshares, The Publishing Laboratory at the University of New Orleans, Wendy’s Subway, Barrelhouse, Bloodletter, and Janklow & Nesbit Associates
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.
First up, this is the last week to sign up for the Submission Sunday Summer Support Group! All you need to do is sign up as an annual paid subscriber, send me an email, and get ready to start making your dreams come true next Sunday. (More info below.)
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 Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Image, Ploughshares, The Publishing Laboratory at the University of New Orleans, Wendy’s Subway, Barrelhouse, Bloodletter, and Janklow & Nesbit Associates. More details below.
FSG (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Writer’s Fellowship (Deadline July 6)
Launched in 2021, the FSG Writer’s Fellowship is an annual program designed to give an emerging writer from an underrepresented community additional resources to build a life around writing—including $15,000 in funding, editorial guidance, and support from the FSG community. The Fellowship celebrates the spirit of the FSG list and its commitment to invention, curiosity, and extending the limits of literature. The Fellow agrees to offer to FSG the Fellow’s first book-length work before submitting to, or soliciting offers from, any other publisher.
Image Call for Submissions (“Trash, Broadly Considered” – Deadline August 2)
Image, a quarterly print and online journal of art and faith, is seeking writing and art on trash, broadly considered, for a special issue to be published in winter 2026–27. We’re interested in takes on remains, remnants, relics, and apocrypha; on waste and conservation; on class, pop culture, and guilty pleasures; in writing on the things we hate to love, and the objects and beliefs we discard; and on the possibility that broken things—humanity included—can be redeemed.
Image‘s focus is on contemporary work that engages with religion and spirituality, including ancient traditions and present experience, faith and doubt, ambivalent wrestling and wholehearted devotion. We’re open to visual art, including illustration, and writing in all genres, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Nonfiction may include personal essays but also essays about recent books, film, music, or other art forms (that is, work that’s come out within the past 5 years), or that blend personal elements with a given subject. Work in translation is welcome.
Ploughshares Call for Submissions (Deadline November 15)
Ploughshares is published four times a year: blended poetry and prose issues in the winter and spring, a prose issue in the summer, and a special longform issue in the fall. Our spring and summer issues are guest-edited by different writers of prominence. Guest editors are invited to solicit up to half of their issues, with the other half selected from manuscripts submitted to the journal and screened for them by staff editors. This guest editor policy, which we have used since our founding in 1971, is designed to introduce readers to different literary tastes, and to offer a fuller representation of the range and diversity of contemporary letters than would be possible with a single editorship.
The Publishing Laboratory at the University of New Orleans Call for Manuscripts (Deadline August 31)
We are looking for the best unpublished novel or short story collection. The Publishing Laboratory at the University of New Orleans seeks to bring innovative publicity and broad distribution to authors. The 15-20 finalists are read by students from The Publishing Laboratory in the fall, and one is chosen for publication.
The selected author will receive a ten thousand dollar ($10,000) advance on royalties and a contract to publish with the University of New Orleans Press. The work does not have to be regionally focused. There is no word limit. There is no restriction on subjects covered. The contest is open to all authors from around the world, regardless of publishing history. Works of fiction (novels and short story collections) only. The University of New Orleans Press is based at the University of New Orleans and distributed by Hopkins Fulfillment Services.
Starting Sunday, June 21, we’ll meet from 9:00 to 10:00 AM Pacific time online through August 30 (with no meeting on July 5). We’ll have a quick check-in, a sneak preview of that day’s new post of eight opportunities if there is one or a reminder of some submission tips, and then spend the rest of the hour off-camera sending out work before a final wrap-up. I’ll be available for one-on-one breakouts to discuss any issues you’re running into, and we’ll keep a group Google sheet of our submissions and results.
If you are an annual paid subscriber, send an email to submissionsunday@gmail.com to sign up and we’ll make this summer a memorable one! If you’re a monthly paid subscriber, all you need to do is switch to an annual plan and send me an email. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have. Let’s do this!
Wendy’s Subway 2026 Book Prize (Deadline July 24)
Wendy’s Subway is pleased to announce the 2026 Book Prize for full-length manuscripts. Manuscripts selected through our open reading period are published as part of the Passage Series, which features books by emerging writers and artists whose work manifests in innovative, hybrid, and cross-genre forms that imagine new possibilities and expressions of the poetic, the political, and the social. The author will publish a book with Wendy’s Subway within 18 months, and receive an honorarium of $1,250 and 25 author copies.
Barrelhouse Call for Newsletter Essays
Each month, Barrelhouse sends out an email newsletter to its large subscriber list. Each newsletter features an original essay, along with brief updates on whatever we have going on: calls for submissions, Writer Camp applications, a new book, etc. In the past, the essays have been solicited. But we’re opening up for submissions.
What we’re looking for: Original personal essays (under 1,000 words) on a pop cultural obsession. We can define “pop culture” pretty broadly here. But the personal is particularly important. We’re not interested in a movie review, or a book recommendation. Rather, we want to read about your idiosyncratic relationship to whatever “thing” you’re writing about. Maybe you went down some weird rabbit holes watching failed marriage proposal videos on YouTube. Or you’re fascinated with the hair and wardrobe choices in the ‘80s vampire movie The Lost Boys. Or the music of Megadeth still conjures up sweet memories of your first love. We don’t want to be too prescriptive! We just want good writing, and interesting perspectives.
Bloodletter Call for Chapbook Submissions (“Migrant Voices in Horror” – Deadline June 30)
Following our first print Bloodletter publication, Trans Voices in Horror (2025), we are now accepting submissions for Migrant Voices in Horror, a chapbook of work by migrant poets from and living around the world. Unlike our biannual digital magazine, Bloodletter chapbooks are distributed nationally in select bookstores and available for direct order. First- and second-generation migrant poets identifying as women, trans, and/or non-binary are invited to submit work that offers an inclusive, expansive, and feminist perspective on the horror genre—or more broadly, the horrific. New and established poets, as well as past Bloodletter contributors, are encouraged to submit.
Janklow & Nesbit Associates Open to Queries
Janklow & Nesbit Associates is a premier literary agency dedicated to the interests of our writer clients in all aspects of their careers. We offer the care and personal attention of a boutique agency and the strength and expertise of a large firm.
Janklow & Nesbit’s approach has always been one of client advocacy combined with meticulous attention to detail. Matching quality writers to leading publishers, our agents’ skills are supported by an integrated foreign rights team with deep publishing relationships in markets throughout the world.
Our agency has represented books that have appeared on The New York Times Bestseller Lists cumulatively for more than 10,000 weeks over the past decade. Janklow & Nesbit authors have garnered every major accolade from the Pulitzer Prize to the Academy Award. Our highest priority is the success of our authors.
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.
Prairie Ronde Artist Residency Call for Applications (Vicksburg, Michigan – Deadline June 15 for Fall Session)
CRAFT 2026 First Chapters Contest (Deadline June 28)
Atticus Review Call for Submissions (“Song” – Deadline June 28)
Feign The Reign Prize (Deadline June 30)
Granta Call for Submissions (Deadline June 30)
Thimble Literary Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline June 30)
Pleiades: Literature in Context Call for Submissions (Deadline June 30)
Prairie Schooner Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 1)
Granum Foundation Prizes (Deadline August 1 or when submission cap is met)
Reed Magazine Call for Submissions (General + Contests – Deadline October 1)
*This newsletter does not guarantee the unimpeachable behavior of all venues shared here but the odds are good.
