Submission Sunday 7.20.25
Scottish Arts Trust, Ploughshares, Grand Journal, The Masters Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, HyeBred Magazine, and The Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation
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! Paid subscribers receive an invitation to the Submission Sunday private chat, 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 the Scottish Arts Trust, Ploughshares, Grand Journal, The Masters Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, HyeBred Magazine, and The Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation for Literature & the Arts. More details below.
Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award and Edinburgh True Flash Award (Deadline August 31)
The Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award features a £2,000 prize for writers worldwide for stories on any topic up to 250 words. We welcome stories in all genres: literary, historic, crime, romance, gritty realism, contemporary, humour and more. Anything that can be packed into 250 words that will transport us in an instant to weird, wonderful, tragic and dramatic moments in time.
The Edinburgh True Flash Award celebrates memoirs, creative non-fiction, and auto-fiction told in artful, original ways that entertain and amaze, bring us to tears or leave us outraged. Tell us a story we just can’t forget. Open to writers worldwide. First prize is £500 plus publication for at least the top five stories in our annual Edinburgh Anthology series. We are thrilled that Meg Pokrass will judge both awards.
Established in 2014, the Scottish Arts Trust is dedicated to fostering innovation and creativity in Scotland's arts scene. We offer new platforms for the promotion of works by Scottish artists, writers, musicians, and other creative professionals, while harnessing the skills, enthusiasm, and vision of volunteers passionate about the arts. Our international writing awards meanwhile celebrate creativity and insight from authors and illustrators working in fiction, non-fiction and graphic novel formats.
Ploughshares Call for Submissions (Deadline January 15)
Ploughshares has published quality literature since 1971 and has been based at Emerson College in downtown Boston since 1989. Ploughshares blends the unique editorial perspectives of two guest-edited issues with two staff-edited issues each year, showcasing a variety of established and emerging writers across each issue.
We welcome unsolicited submissions of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction during our Regular Reading Period. 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 prose 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 circles and tastes, and to offer a fuller representation of the range and diversity of contemporary letters than would be possible with a single editorship.
Grand Journal Call for Submissions
Grand Journal was founded in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, as a forum for emerging and established writers. It is rooted in a passionate love of story-telling in all its forms, and an abiding belief that a print journal has a unique and special place in the cultural space, as distinct from online journals, arising in part from the profoundly creative process of selection, layout and design, and from the innate limitations of print that make curation all the more critical. The journal is predicated on giving space to a diverse and inclusive community of writers and artists across multiple genres including fiction, poetry, reportage, criticism, essays, memoir, and art and photography.
The Masters Review Summer Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline September 7)
The Summer Short Story Award for New Writers returns! Since 2016, our Short Story Award has connected emerging writers with some of the industry’s top literary agents. Past winners include Nana Nkweti, Nick Fuller Googins, Sanjena Sathian, and more, several of whom earned representation from one of our partnered agents as a result of this contest.
We’re looking for spectacular stories—up to 6,000 words, fiction or creative nonfiction—that only you can tell. This year’s guest judge is Jennine Capó Crucet, a recipient of the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize and author of Say Hello to My Little Friend and other works. Our contest runs from July 1 to September 7, 2025, and is open to any writer who has not published a novel or memoir with a major press. The first-place winner of this contest, selected by our guest judge, will receive a $3,000 grand prize, along with online publication. Second- and third-place finalists will receive $300 and $200 respectively, along with online publication. All finalists will receive agency review from our six partnered agencies.
Take advantage of a 20% discount on websites and coaching now through July 31.
📚 Every other week, I’ll be making space for up to three online writing classes or programs (and the occasional retreat or conference) to advertise their upcoming offerings here. Learn more about getting your own classified ad. 📚
Halfway Down the Stairs Call for Submissions (“Muse” Issue – Deadline August 1)
Halfway Down the Stairs publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and book reviews. New issues are published quarterly (March, June, September, and December), and each issue is themed. We publish primarily literary and mainstream work, but accept work in most genres, with children’s literature and erotica as the exceptions. Our September 2025 (20th anniversary!) issue will be themed Muse.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Short Fiction Contest (“Write Before Midnight” – Deadline September 30)
Beyond its fact-based focus on science and security, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has always had an affinity for and connection to the arts, high and low, from the artistic minimalism of the Doomsday Clock to the high satire of Dr. Strangelove and pop culture verve of The Who and Dr. Who. Now, to start the Bulletin’s 80th year of publication, they are launching a short fiction contest called “Write Before Midnight,” which will be judged by acclaimed American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson.
Submitted stories can be about any of the existential threats the Bulletin covers: nuclear weapons, climate change, biological and chemical weapons, artificial intelligence, killer robots, doomsday drone submarines, bioengineered zombies, the gray goo of nanotechnology gone wild, and so, so much more. The stories can be dystopian or utopian; pre-, post-, or non-apocalyptic. They can be optimistic as Sesame Street or dark as Edgar Allan Poe’s basement. Entries can be of any genre: high literature and potboiler noir will vie on a level playing field; scifi, fantasy, spy, detective, horror, and even romance tales will be not just allowed, but celebrated. The tales can be comic, tragic, ironic, satiric, or any kind of -ic at all, and they can be of any length—up to 7,000 words. (And not a single word more.) The stories can be prose or graphic form, aka comic books, after all, the “Doomsday Clock” was an important part of Watchmen.
HyeBred Magazine Call for Submissions (“Freedom” Issue – Deadline August 1)
HyeBred is an annual, online literary magazine that features the work of creative Armenian descendants. We publish fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, photography, music, and short films.
What does HyeBred mean? Hye is the transliterated Armenian word for Armenian. Paired with the English word bred, meaning upbringing, this magazine represents the Armenian culture that exists today: a hybrid of cultures from our motherland and respective homelands throughout the Diaspora.
The Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation for Literature & the Arts Fall Residency (Sezze Romano, Italy – Deadline July 31)
Our mission is to extend the legacy of our namesake, publisher Giancarlo DiTrapano, by funding and hosting creative residencies, fostering communities of creativity through readings and other events, and maintaining an editorial archive at our 17th-century villa and cultural center in Sezze Romano, Italy.
Our residencies are open to writers, translators, musicians, artists (working in all mediums), actors, directors, dancers, etc., from around the world—anyone who is looking for uninterrupted time to create new creative work.
All residencies are fully funded, which means we pay for airfare and full room and board at our 17th-century villa and cultural center in Sezze Romano, Italy. We are currently offering residencies for two weeks each in the spring and fall. Applications for Fall 2025 are open. The Fall 2025 residency will take place from October 23 to November 6, 2025. The cohort will consist of up to 5 creative residents.
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.
The Novelry: The Next Big Story (Deadline July 31)
Taco Bell Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
The Sarabande Open Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Barrelhouse Call for Book Pitches (For What It’s Worth – Deadline August 9)
F(r)iction Call for Submissions (“Censored” and “Fame” – Deadline August 30)
American Zoetrope Screeplay Competition (Deadline September 3)
The Reed Magazine Contests (Deadline October 1)
*This newsletter does not guarantee the unimpeachable behavior of all venues shared here but the odds are good.
