If you belong to a limited demographic that is not listed here, this list might be helpful to you.

As long as a press/opportunity/journal is open to submissions we will continue to list it, so some of the content on the list is new, some overlaps with previous issues. This article is an ongoing collaborative effort by Emily Harstone and S. Kalekar. Please send us an email at support@authorspublish.com if you have any feedback or an opportunity/journal/publisher, to recommend.

Literary Journals/Magazines

beestung
“beestung considers poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrids, and art by creators who fall under the non-binary umbrella, genderqueer umbrella, and two-spirit umbrella. Multilingual work and work in translation is welcome. Historically underrepresented writers are encouraged to send work.” They pay $20. They are open now for general submissions.

Agita Magazine
Submissions will open in March for Agita Magazine; they will open March 1 to 14 for general submissions from all authors, and there will be an extended submission window,  for LGBTQIA+, disabled, or BIPOC authors during March 15 to 21; they want horror or dark science fiction flash stories on the theme of Bad Science, whatever that means to authors. They pay $0.05/word for stories of up to 1,000 words.

(s)crawl
They publish horror fiction and poetry by LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, BIPOC, disabled, women, and gender-diverse writers only. Send 1,000-4,000 words for fiction or up to 3 poems. They pay CAD20 and the deadline is 15 March 2026 for their second issue (Fall 2026). Submit here.

Hybris Press: OTHERSIDE
OTHERSIDE is a queer-led literary magazine that publishes speculative fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art by 2SLGBTQIA+ creators only. They have spring, summer, autumn and winter submission windows for fiction, reprints, and poetry for 2SLGBTQIA+ creators and extended windows for marginalized 2SLGBTQIA+ creators. Submissions of nonfiction are open year-round. See guidelines for length recommendations for each genre. Payment varies by genre and ranges from $50 up to $320. Submit here.

Yellow Arrow Journal
They want submissions by women-identifying authors only. They are reading creative nonfiction (100-2,000 words) and poetry (up to 2 poems) on the Wonder theme. “The issue will explore the interplay between curiosity and creativity and how it informs discovery in the personal creative process and encourages artistry and fulfillment for women-identifying writers.” They pay $10 and the deadline is 28 February 2026.

Doek!
Doek! Is a Namibia-based literary magazine. They accept submissions from Namibian writers and poets in its fiction and poetry sections, while its nonfiction and visual arts sections are open to contributors from Namibia, Africa, and the African diaspora. They have various forms for submission. The deadline is 31^st March 2026.

the other side of hope: journeys in refugee and immigrant literature
“We invite refugee, asylum seeker, and immigrant poets from around the world to submit their poetry for our other tongue, mother tongue issue. This edition celebrates linguistic diversity by featuring poetry written in any language, presented along English translations​.” Submit up to 2 poems in any language except English. Please state in English the language your poems are written in. “If your poem is selected for publication, you can self-translate it or a member of our Translations Advisory Group will translate it into English (see guidelines for the languages covered by this group). Members of the editorial team will work with you to polish and finalize the translation.” They pay £50 per published poet, and £25 for the English translation. The deadline is 30 April 2026.  




Foglifter Press
Their biannual journal is open to general submissions till April 1st. They were created by and for LGBTQ+ writers and readers, and they say “Our biannual journal features the widest range of forms, with an emphasis on transgressive, risky, challenging subject matter, innovative formal choices, and work that pushes the boundaries of what writing can do. By putting extraordinary queer and trans writers into conversation, we uplift a growing community of LGBTQ+ readers and writers and carve out space in the larger literary community for voices that have historically been silenced.”

The Belladonna
They publish only work from women, non-binary, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming authors. They publish satire and other humour focused pieces, but they are not interested in satirical news stories.

East Jasmine Review
East Jasmine Review is an electronic literary magazine that publishes quality fiction, nonfiction, poetry, articles and reviews. They don’t have strict rules around who can submit but they state “Our first goal is to publish diverse voices that may not have mainstream access or traditional access to publishing. This includes but is not limited to LGBTQIA, ethnic minorities, women, lower socio-economic status, those who are older or younger, religious minorities, and non-American persons”. 

Bipolar Poetry
This not-for-profit online publication publishes original poetry by people who have been diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder.

The B’K Magazine
This art and literature magazine prioritizes and pays traditionally marginalized creators, but they are open to submissions from all. They have very in-depth and detailed submission guidelines that everyone should read carefully before submitting.

t’Art
This UK-based organization wants to make space “for voices who don’t get as much space as everybody else”. They are a queer and trans-led collective, but they welcome work from everyone, while prioritizing underrepresented voices including LGBTQIA+ voices and voices of colour. Their online magazine is always open for submissions and they allow submissions of poetry, short films, music videos, recordings of live shows, audio tracks, animation, design and visual art collections. And submissions are also open for their new anthology and exhibition about queer and trans kisses, Sucking Face, till 31st March, read more here.

In the Veins
Their website says they are “dedicated to publishing bold stories that push boundaries in Splatterpunk, horror, satire, and LGBTQ+ themes. We champion voices that explore the shadows of speculative fiction, fostering a community where dark imagination thrives and diverse narratives flourish. … We’re especially interested in the works of underrepresented groups: members of the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, but we welcome all voices within the dark hard edged horror and satire communities.” They accept fiction (flash and short), poetry, articles, and art related to their genre.

CVNT
A new journal that declares they exist “for the solicitation, exhibition, advancement, & support of transfeminine writers”. Submissions are restricted to transfeminine people, binary trans women, & genderqueer folks. They accept submissions of poetry, fiction, & creative nonfiction on a rolling basis.

Gasp Magazine 
I’m not linking to this publication in the title, because their website is not safe for work as they are a publisher of adult work. Please do not click on this link unless you are 18+/ They focus on sharing a multifaceted discussions on sexuality, eroticism, and queerness. They are interested in essays, interviews, research articles, creative writing, poetry, artistic illustrations, and photography (with additional rules) that reflect upon sex or the absence thereof in one way or another.

The Saartjie Journal
This new journal is only open to writing and visual art by Black women artists and writers. They accept submissions of previously unpublished original poems, short stories, and visual art.

Mande
This is a journal of bipolar talent. “Mande is always open to submissions from bipolar creatives on any topic. While I appreciate the long shadows bipolar throws, I’m particularly interested at the moment in its high points, in any joy or positive elements you find in bipolar. We also publish work by people familiar with bipolar, as long as it’s directly related to manic depression.” They pay for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art. They pay $50-250. 

Cripple Punk Mag
This Substack publishes “essays, criticism, news and reviews, literary nonfiction, fiction, rants and raves, comics, and hybrid works on the subject of disability and live music, especially within the context of punk, alternative, and DIY music.”  They also have an annual print anthology. Payment starts at $10 and is dependent on length and sliding scale based on need. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Previously published work is allowed, and work should be between 300 and 1,000 words in length.

The West Trestle Review
This respected journal is only open to submissions poetry and art by creators around the globe who self-identify as women or as non-binary. They are always open to free submissions by BIPOC writers who self-identify as women or as non-binary, and you can see those guidelines here. 

Decolonial Passage
According to their website they “publish writing from writers of all backgrounds regardless of race, origin, or gender while simultaneously centering African, African American, and Black Diaspora writing.” Their mission statement goes into more details about this. They are open on a rolling basis to essays, creative nonfiction, short stories, and flash fiction. They are open to poetry only during the months of February, June, and October; and for prose, only during April, May, August, and December.

AC|DC
They publish short stories and creative nonfiction by LGBTQIA+ authors. They are currently open to submissions.

Magnets and Ladders
They publish the work of disabled writers in two issues a year.

DisLit Youth Magazine
They only publish work by writers 14-22, and they primarily publish disabled writers.

AURORE
This publications tagline is “a curated collection of erotic stories written by and for women and LGBTQ+ based on their own experiences”. Because it is a NSFW site, the link to get to it is here, instead of the title, please only click on it if you are 18+ They publish nonfiction erotica and their website is NSFW, please do not visit it if you are under 18.

Heaven Magazine
They are interested in publishing fiction, creative non fiction, flash, and poetry by all underrepresented creators.

Sinister Wisdom
A multicultural lesbian literary & art journal. Founded in 1976, this literary journal is always open to submissions.

Saffron City Press
Saffron City Press is an online literary journal dedicated to amplifying the voices of Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern-American writers.

Plentitude
They want submissions from LGBTQ2S+ writers only; their Submittable has separate submission slots for Canadian and international writers. The Gender Bender section is only open to Canadian writers. Every genre has a monthly submission cap. Pay is CAD60 per poem, CAD125 per prose contribution (fiction and creative nonfiction), CAD100 for book reviews and Genre Bender (hybrid) submissions. The submission deadline for international writers is end-April, and for Canadian writers, it is end-May 2026. Details here and here.

The Kalahari Review
A weekly African literary magazine interested in material exploring modern Africa and Africans in unique and avant-garde ways. They publish their work on Medium.

Transition
Born in Africa and bred in the diaspora, Transition  is a publication of the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, published three times annually. Transition publishes writing by and about Africa and the African diaspora, with an eye towards a global perspective. They accept submissions year-round on a rolling basis, and generally respond to submissions within four months. 

Lavender Review
An international, biannual e-zine published in June and December, they are open to submissions of poetry and art by, about, and for lesbians. Submissions are open year round.

Ricepaper
This publication offers Asian Canadian context to ongoing arts and cultural issues, new perspectives on emerging and established Asian Canadian artists, and challenges mainstream media perspectives, little-known facts of interest, or critical stories that haven’t been told elsewhere. They are open to submissions from Asian writers around the globe as long as the editors can see a link between the content and some aspect of the Asian Canadian experience.

Raising Mothers
Raising Mothers celebrates and centers the experiences of  Black, Indigenous, and Brown parents. Some sections have reading periods; columns are open year-round. Guidelines are here. See their call for 2026 here. 

African Writer
They are open to all genres of literature from Africa and the African Diaspora. They do not allow simultaneous submissions.

Afritondo
According to their website, “Afritondo is a media and publishing platform that aims to connect with and tell the stories of Africans and black minority populations across the globe.” They accept a wide range of work, including manuscript-length work.

Brittle Paper 
Brittle Paper is an online literary magazine for readers of African Literature. They accept the following: “fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, book reviews, essays, literary commentaries, fun listicles, and any writing with a literary bent”. 

Torch Literary Arts
Torch Literary Arts is a nonprofit organization. They publish and promote creative writing by Black women only; you can read more about them here. They publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers. “We are interested in work that challenges and disrupts preconceived notions of what Black women’s contemporary writing should be.” General submissions are accepted for Friday Features only, in which they publish fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama (including that accompanied by video or dramatic audio). Send up to 3,500 for prose works, up to 10 pages for drama, or up to 5 poems. Pay is $150. Submissions are accepted on an ongoing basis; you can submit here.

Bi Women Quarterly
BWQ features the voices of women “with bi+ sexualities (i.e., bi, pan, fluid, and other non-binary sexualities)” and they see “woman” as a broad category and welcome contributions those who identify as trans, non-binary, cis, etc. They publish articles, creative writing, musings, and more.

KOENING ZINE
They publish art, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction submissions  primarily by Asians, but they are open to submissions from non-Asians. Their uniting theme is Asian Folklore. Submitters must be over 18.

POETRY SANGO-OTA
We only usually include journals currently open to submissions, but this list is always published on the third Thursday of a given month, and this journal is only open to submissions through the 1st to the 10th of each month, so we are listing it and encouraging you to set a calendar alert for when it reopens on the 1st of the next month. “We are interested in poems with a keen connection to a sense of place, nature, or otherworldly geographies.” They only publish African poets, and pay N2,500 per poem.

The Gay & Lesbian Review 
The Gay & Lesbian Review is a bimonthly magazine of history, culture, and politics targeting an educated readership of LGBT people, and their allies that publishes themed features (2,000-4,000 words), reviews, interviews, and departments. They have announced a couple of themed calls, and they also invite suggestions for future themes. 

1. Homo Litterarius: Iconic LGBT figures in fiction
2. Inside a Frame: Coded messages in art through the ages
3. Sex in Public: From bathhouses to “cottaging”

 Writers can send proposals or complete pieces. They pay for features ($250) and full-length book reviews ($100).

The Acentos Review
The Acentos Review publishes writing, art, music and multigenre work by Latinx writers. They are open to submissions all year long. Details here.

Craft
This respected literary journal is open to creative work from authors of all backgrounds, but they offer free submissions + fast response times to BIPOC and other mis- and underrepresented writers, here. Craft pays $100 for flash and $200 for short fiction and creative nonfiction.

Aloka
They want work by non-native English speakers only – poetry, translations, fiction, and hybrid work. Send up to 5 poems, or up to 2 prose pieces, up to 2,500 words each.

The Lighthouse / Black Girl Times
The tagline of The Lighthouse is, “Cultivating spaces of solidarity and safety for southern Black girls to shine through focused programming and research.” They have an extensive guide for pitching articles, including “We … are always looking for thought-provoking stories and other content from marginalized communities, Black girls, (in particular, but not exclusively) and gender non-conforming people. In addition to story and long-form story pitches and op-eds, they accept photography and original artwork for their online blogging platform, The Black Girl Times, and their monthly newsletter, The Black Girl Times Redux. Also, “Each month, we have an editorial theme board (kind of like the mood boards interior designers use) we post on our social media accounts (@luvblkgrls). The theme board is intended to be an inspiration and provocation of thoughts, ideas and feelings. Your response(s) can be literal or abstract and loose. And again, it might not have anything to do with anything we’ve seen.” Pay is $0.25-$1/word. Pay for art (graphic design, cartoons and photo essays) is $150-1,000.

Screen Door Review
They only publish work by individuals who are Southern and queer. You can learn more about how they define Southern here. They publish flash fiction and poetry.

Emergent Literary
An exciting new literary journal that accepts a wide range of submissions from Black and Brown authors.

Presses/Anthologies 

Hajar Press: The Hajar Book of Waves
Hajar Press is “an independent and proudly political publishing house by and for people of colour.” And, “We’re seeking submissions from writers of colour of short pieces of writing for The Hajar Book of Waves, the second volume in our elements anthology series.
This Water-themed book will explore the waves that carry, connect, renew and shape us: the ebb and flow of history in a non-linear continuum, a call-and-response between the past and the future; the gushing surges of empathy and feeling that move and enliven us; the fluid psycho-spiritual processes that help us adapt and change; the cycles of action and reflection that keep our organising alive; the mass movement of people in protest and migration; and the irrepressible force of the cosmos guiding the earthly tide. We’re interested in writing that engages with waves as both material and metaphor—flowing and flooding, soothing and overwhelming, refreshing and eroding; the rhythms and repetitions of perpetual back-and-forth motion; the power of water refusing to stagnate.” They want short stories, poetry, essays and “everything in between showing radical imagination, creative experimentation and sharp political engagement with the world around us.” Send up to 3 poems or up to 6,000 words of prose. They pay £50 for poems and £150 for prose. The deadline is 6^th March 2026. 

Neon Hemlock: What Elegant Stars: Queer Tales of Impossible Style
Because they have lots of previous guidelines on their submission page, visiting their Submittable page might be more helpful. This is how they describe what they are seeking for the anthology:
“Swordspoint meets Star Wars
Ninefox Gambit meets The Devil Wears Prada
Ancillary Justice+ An Unkindness of Ghosts + Pattern Recognition
Give us stories of satellites and sewists, terminals and tailors, dandies and dying stars. Give us gossip wicked and vital, dinner parties salacious and droll, debutantes vile and intrepid. 
Give us unforgivable rudeness and oppressive etiquette, scathing asides and dire gaffes.”
They are still crowdfunding it but the planned compensation level for original stories accepted to this anthology is $0.08/word. Their deadline for submissions is April 15th, 2026. Additional context including word count are shared on their website, please read all the information before submitting. They stress “Authors from underrepresented backgrounds and marginalized communities are strongly encouraged to submit.”

Harbor Editions: Marginalia series
This series “is open exclusively to traditionally marginalized writers—those who belong to communities that have been historically excluded from mainstream society due to systemic oppression or unequal power dynamics. Given the current climate, Small Harbor is reaffirming its commitment to our mission. In your cover letter, please include a few sentences about how your experiences with marginalization inform your writing.” They are accepting poetry chapbooks that are between 20-40 pages. They will publish 1-2 books from the open reading period. Those selected will receive a standard publishing contract and 20 copies of their book. There are additional details and requirements on their website, please read those carefully before submitting. They close to submissions on March 31st.

Heyday Books: Berkeley Roundhouse program
Heyday is an established independent and nonprofit publisher that focuses on California and the American West. They publish nonfiction books that explore history, celebrate Native cultural renewal, fight injustice, and honor nature. They are open to submissions from Native voices in particular for their Roundhouse imprint, which you can learn more about here.

Scylla Publishing: Who Am I? A Sapphic Spec Fic Anthology of Identity and Purpose
This is a fiction anthology. “This anthology aims to explore sapphic identity and purpose through the lens of fantasy and speculative fiction. Give us your adventure, introspection, daring, romance, or conflict!
Put simply, being sapphic is not all we are, but it does play a role in who we are and the choices we make. Same with our characters. We’re looking for stories that give sapphic characters something amazing to do while remaining visibly and proudly queer.” Please see their detailed guidelines, including about hard sells. And, “Authors must be female identifying or non-binary.
We will be stating in our marketing that all contributors are sapphic/wlw. If you are uncomfortable with this, please do not submit, or use a pen name to submit.” They also accept reprints and translations. Stories must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words. They pay $0.10 (AUD) per word, with a maximum payment of $400 (AUD) per story. “An additional $50 (AUD) per story will be offered if your story is to be used in whole or in part in the email/social marketing campaigns for the anthology.” The submission deadline is 28 February 2026 (5pm AEDT); you can submit via Duosuma, or a submission form on their website.

FurPlanet Productions: Claw Vol 2
This is a furry fiction anthology. “The F/F erotic furry anthology returns, rejoining the ROAR and FANG anthologies. CLAW! seeks to showcase the sapphic works of women and nonbinary authors, and is fully trans-inclusive.
The theme for the second volume will be “Women In Power.” We will be accepting a wide variety of submissions that play with this theme across multiple genres. This will be a mature audience short story collection. While erotica is preferred, sex is not required.” They pay half a cent per word for stories of 4,000 to 10,000 words, and the deadline is 30 April 2026.

Sundress Publications
Sundress Publications is open for submissions of full-length prose manuscripts in all genres from now through February 28th, 2026. They are particularly interested in prose collections that value genre hybridization, especially speculative memoir; strange or fractured narratives; flash fiction; experimental work; or work with strong attention to lyricism and language. These collections may be short stories, novellas, essays, memoir, or a mixture thereof. They waive the reading fee that they charge for all writers of color and entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title.

Palimpsest Press 
They only publish Canadian authors. They are open to submissions from authors who identify as BIPOC, Deaf, or Disabled, all year round. They accept submissions from authors who do not identify as BIPOC, Deaf or Disabled from March 1st through March 31st. They publish poetry and other literary genres.

Lantana
They are an award-winning children’s book publisher based in England, United Kingdom. They are looking for manuscripts and book dummies by authors and illustrators from under-represented groups. They almost exclusively publish stories with child protagonists (including poetry, graphic novels and non-fiction) and are not looking for stories only featuring animal characters.

The University Of Arkansas Press
The University of Arkansas Press accepts unsolicited proposals for scholarly and trade books on topics related the African American history and culture. You can visit their website here to see the titles they’ve previously published.

aunt lute
A multicultural women’s press. Their priority is to publish work by women, both transgender and cisgender, particularly women of color. We have reviewed them here.

Balestier Press
They are committed to promoting diversity in publishing, with a particular focus on Asia. They accept submissions of a wide variety of creative works including fiction, poetry, short stories, graphic novels, creative nonfiction, memoirs. They are also open to works in translation. Assume rejection if you have not heard from them after three months.

Little Puss Press
A feminist press run by trans women. They are open to general submissions of fiction and non-fiction manuscripts. They are also open to reprint proposals of literary/historical works of significance by transgender authors. They have good distribution, excellent press, and have already published work that has won a major award.

Arte Público Press 
They focus on publishing literary work by “Hispanic writers”, and they publish work in both English and Spanish, but primarily focus on English work. They also have bilingual children’s and YA book imprint, Piñata Books.

Phoenix
Phoenix is a new speculative imprint launched by Nigerian publisher Ouida Books in collaboration with Nnedi Okorafor and Lọlá Shónẹ́yìn. Phoenix is dedicated to publishing African speculative fiction and fantasy (Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism). You can learn more about it here.

The Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series
This opportunity, from Black Lawrence Press, is for immigrants living in the US – for manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid writing. “Poets and authors, at any stage of their careers, who identify as immigrants are welcome to submit a book manuscript of poetry or prose or a hybrid text for consideration. Submissions are accepted year-round. However, selections are made in June and November for a total of two books per year. In addition to publication, marketing, and a standard royalties contract from Black Lawrence Press, authors chosen for the Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series will receive a travel stipend of $500, which can be used for book tours or in any manner chosen by the authors.”

North Dakota State University Press: Contemporary Voices of Indigenous Peoples Series
The goal of this series to feature the authentic stories, poetry, and scholarly works of Native Americans, First Nations, Maori, Aborigines, Indians, and more to give voice to contemporary Indigenous peoples. NDSU Press considers book-length manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for publication in this series.

Tundra Books, Puffin Canada, Penguin Teen Canada
These children and teen focused Canadian imprints are open to direct submissions by underrepresented authors and illustrators only. Authors need not be Canadian.

Monsoon Books
This respected press accepts unsolicited manuscripts with Asian, particularly Southeast Asian, themes. 

Arsenal Pulp Press
A Canadian independent press that publishes a wide variety of work,  prioritizes work by LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors. We have reviewed them here.

Lily
A small poetry press that publishes work of varying length. Submitting shorter work is free for everyone, but submitting poetry manuscripts is free only for poets who identify as Black. They are always open to these submissions.

Angry Robot
A great science fiction publisher that only accepts direct submissions from Black authors.

Heartdrum
Heartdrum is an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, which is edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and is in partnership with We Need Diverse Books. Native and First Nations writers and writer-illustrators are welcome to query her directly via a form on her website. Native and First Nations illustrators are also invited to reach out.

Opportunities/Support/Contests

ALTA Travel Fellowships
Each year, several fellowships of $1,000 each are awarded to emerging translators (someone who does not yet have a book-length work of translation published or under contract) to help them pay for hotel and travel expenses to the annual American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference. Part of the application requirement is up to 10 pages of translated work (poetry or prose – see guidelines). “While the Travel Fellowships are open to all applicants, we especially encourage applications from translators of color, translators with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ translators.” Also see ALTA’s other awards for published works. The deadline is 16 March 2026; see the relevant category here here for travel fellowships (scroll down).

Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award
This international grant for writers of color is for supporting the recipient in crime fiction writing and career development activities. She or he may choose activities that include workshops, seminars, conferences, and retreats, online courses, and research activities required for completion of the work. This is for an emerging writer (see guidelines). The application process includes a writing sample – an unpublished piece of crime fiction, written with an adult audience in mind. This may be a short story or first chapter(s) of a manuscript in-progress, 2,500 to 5,000 words. Their website says, you do not have to be a member of Sisters in Crime to apply for this grant. See their recent Instagram post for information on the latest award cycle.
The grant is $2,000; the winner can choose from a range of activities, and the deadline is 31 March 2026; details here.

Broadside Lotus Press: Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award
This is for a poetry manuscript by an African American poet. Submit a manuscript that is approximately 60 to 90 pages. At the time of writing, details of the latest award cycle seemed to be only posted on their Facebook page. The award is $500, and the deadline is 15 March 2026. Details here (website and information on the previous award cycle) and here (latest award cycle information on their FB page).

Red Hen Press Ann Petry Award
This is for a work of previously unpublished prose, either a novel or a collection of short stories or novellas, minimum of 150 pages, by a Black writer. The award is $3,000 and publication, the deadline is 31 March 2026. Details here and here.
(See all of the Red Hen Press awards here.)

BCALA Self-Publishing Literary Awards
“Through this contest, the BCALA honors the best self-published ebooks by an African American author in the U.S. in both fiction and poetry genres.
These awards acknowledge outstanding achievement in the presentation of the cultural, historical and sociopolitical aspects of the Black Diaspora. The purpose is to encourage the artistic expression of the African American experience via literature and scholarly research including biographical, historical, and social history treatments by African Americans.” The award is $2,500 each for a self-published poetry and prose ebook, and the deadline is 28 February 2026.

Terrain.org Editor’s Prize
Terrain.org welcomes submissions on place, climate, and justice – fiction (short story, flash fiction series, novel excerpt, radio play, or other fiction piece) and non-fiction; they are not open for poetry in 2026. They also accept translations, and art. Payment for general submissions is a minimum of $50. And, “All accepted submissions by writers of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women, and/or other marginalized communities whose contributions explore place particularly in the context of social, environmental, or climate justice are considered for our annual Editor’s Prize of $500 per genre.” There is no separate submission process or entry fee for this contest; they have other, fee-based contests too. Certain sections, like Letter to America and ARTerrain, are open year-round. Submissions close on 30^th April for fiction and nonfiction. The Editor’s Prize for underrepresented writers is $500 per genre. Details here.

Airlie Prize
This annual competition closes to submissions on March 31st, 2026. Any poet writing in English is eligible to enter, regardless of place of residence. Free submissions are only permitted from BIPOC &/or Trans/Gender-Expansive Writers. The winner receives book publication and a $1,000 prize upon publication of the winning book. Airlie Press is a nonprofit poetry collective based in the Pacific Northwest. 

Curtis Brown Creatives
They have a number of scholarships for classes and have various eligibility requirements. Some of their scholarships focus on low income writers, others on LGBTQ+ writers and BIPOC writers. The fastest approaching deadline is March 16th. Please review their details closely before applying.

The Rose Library: LGBTQ Collections Travel Award
The Rose Library (at Emory College) is offering the LGBTQ Collections Travel Award. Among its various holdings, the Billops-Hatch archives has more than 1,200 play scripts written by African Americans, 1,400 interviews with various artists, and a library of rare and unique books and periodicals. Past fellowship recipients include post-graduate students, authors, professors, and scholars researching areas of African American art and art history, including the visual arts, theater, film, and literature.  This fellowship has a value of $1,000 per week. The total amount depends on the applicant’s research proposal. Additional details, including eligibility requirements are at the website. Applications must be made by May 14th.

Jericho Writers: Self-Editing Bursary
Jericho Writers has one fully-funded place for an under-represented writer in their course – Self-Editing Your Novel. Three runners-up will be given a free annual membership to Jericho Writers, which includes access to video courses. Their deadline is Monday March 9th. Please review their detailed eligibility requirements before applying.

Lambda Literary: Special Awards
In addition to the Lammy Awards which recognize specific titles published in a given year, Lambda Literary hosts a number of special cash prizes recognizing the outstanding contributions made by individuals to LGBTQ+ literature, culture, and community. Submissions to their special prizes for the 2026 cycle close on February 20, 2026. You can learn more about all of the special awards and submitting to them here.

The Caine Prize for African Writing
This prize is also called the African Booker. It is for published short stories, written by an African writers (who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality). They have detailed guidelines, including, “The story must have been published in the five years preceding the submissions deadline. For 2026 eligibility, the judges will only consider work published between 27th February 2021 and 27th February 2026.
Entries must be between 3,000 and 10,000 words in length.” Please note, entries must be submitted by the publisher (includes publishers of physical and digital books, literary journals, magazines, and arts-oriented websites) or a third-party institution that is independent of the author. Stories submitted by the author will not be eligible. Genres not eligible for entry include: novels, children’s stories, factual writing, academic essays, plays, poetry, autobiography/biography, and any work that does not constitute a fictional short story. The award is £10,000, and the submission deadline is 27 February 2026 (12:00 GMT).

The Writing Barn Scholarship
The Writing Barn has a small but budding scholarship program available for our programming. Scholarships are awarded on the following criteria: seriousness of purpose, talent and financial need. They also offer specific Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity scholarships for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Neurodiverse writers, and writers with disabilities.

Princeton University Press: Global Equity Grants
These grants are for authors of underrepresented groups to support the preparation of works that is already under contract, in production, or published within the last 12 months. Grants range from $500 to $1,000. The grants can be used to cover a wide range of supports including parental/family care, and translation. More details at the source. Applications are considered on a rolling basis.

BIPOC scholarship for Emily Harstone’s classes at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish
Each time Emily Harstone offers The Novel Writing Workshop (for manuscripts in progress), Submit, Publish, Repeat (for poems, short stories, and CNF publication in literary journals), and Manuscript Publishing for Novelists (for completed novel and memoir manuscripts) through the Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish, there is now an opportunity for two writers who identify as BIPOC to take it for free. If you registered last year, please note that the form re-set in January, and you are encouraged to fill it out again.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2025 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

antae was first established in 2013 as an academic journal, and was relaunched in 2024 as a journal of creative writing. Since then they’ve published three issues with writing from 22 to 29 contributors. The issues are thoughtfully designed and available to read for free as downloadable PDFs.

antae holds three submission periods each year: June 1 through August 31, October 1 through December 31, and February 1 through April 31. They also sometimes hold additional submission periods for special issues, contests, and events.

Poets may submit up to four poems in any style. Although there’s no length limit, if any poem exceeds three pages, only one poem may be submitted. Authors of prose—fiction or creative nonfiction—may submit 1,000 to 3,000 words in any genre or style. They also accept excerpts from longer works in both poetry and prose.

antae also accepts scripts, creative criticism, reviews, and other works that don’t fit into the categories they’ve outlined.

Authors of scripts may submit 1,500 to 4,500 words in any genre or style. Authors of creative criticism may submit works of any length, using past issues of antae as a guideline. Authors may also contact antae to pitch reviews of creative works—such as novels, essay collections, poetry anthologies, and plays—or to ask about submitting writing that does not fit into their usual categories—such as interviews, videos, and artwork.

In addition to writing in English, antae also accepts English translations from Maltese. All submissions undergo a three-stage review process, and writing is considered without the author’s name attached. 

antae accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. antae does not accept simultaneous submissions or previously published writing. Authors may submit once per submission period. Submissions to one issue may be considered for later issues as well. Authors will be notified when this is the case.

antae only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

If you would like to learn more or submit to antae, please visit their website here. 

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

I used to think writers control the page. You write, it holds. End of story. Clean, adult logic. But years of drafts later, I’m not convinced. The page almost always moves first. A shove here, a pause there. Like it rearranges the room before I even sit down. I drop a sentence, and the page stretches it, compresses it, pushes it into a corner. Bossy thing.

Paragraphs—I used to think they were just… paragraphs. Blocks. Containers. Now they feel more like temperature readings. So, paragraphs have their own weather. A long one usually means I’m circling something I don’t want to deal with. I’ll tell myself I’m “building context,” but really I’m pacing in place with sentences. The shorter ones—almost annoyingly short—tend to appear when something uncomfortable leaks out faster than I expected. Not a confession, but the slip of it. Like muttering something under your breath and realizing afterward you actually meant it.

White space is worse. Or better. Depends on the day. It’s the part I didn’t write but somehow still counts. The breath I didn’t take but the reader hears. I leave a gap and suddenly the sentence above it gets louder. Or fragile. Hard to predict. The page does its own atmospheric shifts. People keep insisting it’s just formatting—decoration, layout, whatever—but anytime I leave a chunk of it, it refuses to sit quietly. It feels closer to when someone stops mid-sentence at dinner and everyone sort of freezes but pretends not to. That odd little beat where you’re waiting, not sure if they forgot their point or decided against saying it. And then someone drops a spoon and the whole atmosphere shifts. That’s what the space does. Not elegant. Definitely not neutral. Just this small, slightly uncomfortable pause that carries more tension than the words before it.

I’ve stopped believing that writing is all “meaning first, form later.” The shape comes first, most of the time. I write horizontally—dragging sentences from left to right in the most basic way—and the page reacts in whatever direction it wants. It nudges things, squashes them, stretches them. A line I meant to keep steady sags somehow. Another one sticks out too far, like it’s trying to get attention. Honestly, many of the “good choices” people compliment me for come from my hand twitching or hitting Enter wrong because my wrist cramped. Accidents wearing shoes that look intentional.

Sometimes the weird part is how the page catches honesty I didn’t notice. I’ll rearrange a paragraph out of frustration, and suddenly it sounds more real than whatever careful sentence I originally built. It didn’t come from some craft epiphany. The page just made the call while I was annoyed and hungry. Happens more often than I admit. People love talking about voice and clarity and all the polished stuff, but most days I’m just trying to keep the draft from sliding out of shape.

There’s this background part of writing nobody explains in any workshop. Not the deep, thoughtful bit—just the tired part. The part where you stare too long at the screen and the whole paragraph starts looking crooked even if you swear it was straight earlier. You fix one tiny thing, and something else shifts left or right for no reason. You undo it, and somehow it looks worse, so you redo it and now the whole section feels lopsided. No symbolism. No hidden craft lesson. Just the regular, slightly irritating way text misbehaves when you’ve been at it longer than you should have. I know this sounds dramatic for something as boring as layout. But the truth is: the page reveals things. The architecture of thought before the thought is clean. The mess before the clarity. I’ve written paragraphs shaped like avoidance. Others shaped like relief. Didn’t mean to. Didn’t notice until later.

The page thinks in ways I don’t. Spatial logic. Breath accounting. Quiet math. I write horizontally; the page writes vertically, diagonally, in all the ways I don’t look at. And maybe that’s the partnership—me trying to get the idea down, the page nudging it into a shape that says the part I won’t say outright. I don’t trust myself to know where the meaning actually lives. Somewhere between the words and the gaps, probably. Somewhere in the tilt of the line. The page catches that before I do. Holds it there.

But maybe that’s also the point. The page has its own logic. Its own timing. Its own stubborn posture. And it doesn’t wait for me to catch up. So yes, the page thinks. Not in a mystical way—just in its own odd, spatial, inconvenient rhythm. And if I don’t think with it, it will rearrange everything anyway. Not out of malice. Just… because that’s what it does. Whether I’m ready or not.

Sometimes smarter than me. Sometimes sharper. And if I don’t listen, it’ll rearrange the whole thing behind my back anyway.

That’s writing, I guess. Two brains. Mine, and the one made of margins.

Probably.

Bio: Sabyasachi Roy is an academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. His poetry has appeared in The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dicey Brown, The Potomac, and more. He contributes craft essays to Authors Publish and has a cover image in Sanctuary Asia. His oil paintings have been published in The Hooghly Review. You can follow his writing on Substack here.

149 Review launched in 2025, and since then they’ve published two online issues, with writing from twelve and thirteen contributors. Both the journal and the website as a whole  are thoughtfully designed. The journal is published twice a year, in the summer and winter. They also offer craft essays and other craft resources, as well as a podcast about submissions.

149 Review is open to poetry submissions twice a year: from February 1 through April 30 for their summer issue, and August 1 through October 31 for their winter issue. Poets may send one submission per reading period. They are open to fiction and nonfiction submissions year-round, and authors in these categories should submit no more than once every three months.

Poets may submit three to five poems. Authors of fiction and creative nonfiction may send one short story or essay, 5,000 words or fewer (keeping in mind that they prefer stories and essays under 3,000 words).

Every issue, 149 Review awards a non-monetary prize to one poem, one story, and one creative essay with exceptional craft: “It takes an incredible amount of time to develop a command over one’s craft toolkit, and as writers ourselves, we want to put that effort on display.” All submissions are considered for these prizes. 149 Review also plans to nominate writing published in the journal for all the major anthologies.

149 Review accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions, but ask that authors withdraw writing published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work, and they do not accept writing generated or assisted by AI.

149 Review only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

If you would like to learn more or submit to 149 Review, please visit their website here. 

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

“Dear Emily,
My novel has been through years of revisions now, and I’ve shopped it around to most agents and publishers. I could revise it one more time, but I’m not sure I have that in me or if it will change anything. What do I do now?”

There is no one easy answer to this question, but there are options that most writers have available to them.

Many writers think of self-publishing as the only option, and while it certainly is one, it is not the only one.

Below are the three best ways forward from rejection in my opinion.

Self-publish

I’ve worked with many authors who’ve ended up self-publishing, and some of them have been successful going down that route, and really are grateful they chose to self-publish it. Others have regretted it.

If you are going to self-publish, do not work with a vanity or hybrid press, actually self-publish. I talk more about what the distinction is and why you should avoid vanity and hybrid presses here.

Make sure you have an excellent cover and get proof copies in advance to verify that the printer is doing a good job.

It is important to go all out in terms of self-promotion. Make yourself a marketing plan with a six-month lead time to the sale of the book, so you really can put thought and effort into promoting it. This article isn’t about promoting books so I won’t go into more details here, but I will highly encourage you to watch this terrific lecture by Nev March about book marketing beforehand. She’s a traditional author but a lot of her advice is still very helpful and it can make the scope of marketing clearer.

Write another book

I understand that this option is a little confusing, but the fact is most authors don’t get the first book they write published, or rather, they don’t get it published first.

Jennifer Givhan, the poet and novelist, had her first manuscript, Jubilee, rejected widely. She then wrote a second novel, Trinity Sight, and found an agent to represent it. That agent eventually successfully placed both Trinity Sight and Jubilee with a respected traditional publisher.

I have also seen so many other examples of this as a friend and a reader. It’s a far from uncommon story.

In any case writing a brand new book can be a great and helpful experience as writers often take all that they learned writing and revising their first book into writing the second. So right from the start they have a much better first draft.

For writers who are feeling particularly burnt out, consider writing shorter pieces for a bit. These are generally much easier to place and that can help your query letter and your confidence.

Give the project space to breathe

Often it can be tempting to just force a revision to have one, even if you aren’t inspired to do it. In my experience revising too soon after writing the previous draft or after receiving critique, is not generally helpful.

Writers in this situation tend to focus on surface level revisions, and making hasty decisions with little thought involved.

I think it’s much better to give yourself time and form a plan for revising that you are excited about, before working on revising this work. Sometimes this takes weeks, other times years.

In conclusion

No matter which option you chose, I think it’s important to remember that most people who set out to write a novel never complete one, so you have already achieved a lot more than most.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2025 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

If a publisher has closed to submissions unexpectedly, please send us an email at support@authorspublish.com.

Please read the full review, which we link to in the publish name, and carefully consider fit before submitting work. I can not stress enough that you should only submit to presses that are a good fit for your work, and that you should carefully read and follow submissions guidelines before submitting that work. Over the past year we had several presses ask to be de-listed because they were deluged by submissions, even after moving to this format. Still more presses have had to temporarily close to submissions because of an influx of inappropriate submissions.

Lawley Publishing
Lawley Publishing is an Arizona-based press focused on publishing books for children. Their motto is “Kids’ books with heart”, and their logo, a book with a heart in it, echoes that sentiment. They publish children’s fiction and nonfiction picture books, early reader fiction and nonfiction chapter books, as well as middle grade fiction and nonfiction. They do not publish board books, young adult fiction or nonfiction, or books for adults.

Strange Attractor
Strange Attractor is an independent publishing house based in London, founded in 2003. They are run by Mark Pilkington and Jamie Sutcliffe, who bring independent contractors to help with some components of the publication. They have a well designed and easy to navigate website. Their books are widely available online as well as distributed internationally through The MIT Press, via Penguin Random House. The vast majority of what they publish is nonfiction. I very much encourage you to spend some time with their catalog, before submitting. They are seeking books that fit within their larger publishing catalog.

Entwined Publishing
Founded as The Totally Entwined Group, they re-branded in 2024 as Entwined Publishing. The current eight imprints are Epic (Young/New Adult), Entice (Contemporary), Eclipse (Dark Romance), Enchant (Romantasy – which is to say romance + fantasy), Eternal (Paranormal), Echoes (Historical) and Expanse (Science Fiction). All imprints have additional guidelines and preferences. Please carefully review the appropriate imprints page before submitting.

Hurst
Hurst is a UK-based independent publisher that was founded in 1969. They only publish nonfiction and the core of their list focuses on “African Studies, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies, History, War & Conflict, and International Relations.” Nonfiction work outside of those areas of study are not a good fit for them. You can spend more time with their catalogue here. It is very easy to get a feel for what they publish, and what they do not.

Inner Traditions & Bear Company
Founded in 1975 by Ehud C. Sperling, Inner Traditions has always focused on publishing work related to spirituality, the occult, as well as Eastern religion, philosophy, and practices. In 2000 they acquired Bear & Company, which focused more on Native American culture, alternative Christianity, New Age, and healing arts. You can learn more about the founding and growth of Inner Traditions here. They are currently distributed by Simon & Schuster. The books they publish cover a wide range, from Self-Help to Conspiracies. You can get a good feel for the range by going to their catalog, which organizes their books by subject. They also publish card decks and are open to submissions of those as well.

Lyons Press
Lyons Press was founded in 1984. Their initial focus was on a lifestyle of “responsible outdoor sport,” according to their founder Nick Lyon. They have since expanded their focus to books on fishing, hunting, nature, animals, military history, American history, entertainment, true crime and sports. They are now an imprint of Globe Pequot, which you can learn more about here.

Common Notions
Common Notions is a press that describes itself as “deeply committed to publishing books that provide timely reflections, clear critiques, and inspiring strategies that amplify movements for social justice”. They emphasize that their publishing program “reflects the lessons we’ve learned as members of worker collectives, labor and tenants rights campaigns, higher ed struggles, #blacklivesmatter, no border and New Sanctuary movements, anticapitalist arts organizations, antiwar actions, climate justice camps, and the Palestinian solidarity movement.”

33 ⅓
33 ⅓ is an imprint of Bloomsbury. Their motto is “Small books. Big Albums”. Their highly acclaimed main imprint focuses on publishing books that cover popular LP’s. For example they have published books on Cher’s album Believe, and Sufjan Steve’s album Carrie &. Lowell. Some of the books are by famous authors, like Jonathan Lethem, and others are by established writers. You can see their full publication list of their signature series here. They are only currently open to proposals for their Genre: A 33 ⅓ series and any of the global 33 ⅓ series. The series have different guidelines.

Sea Crow Press
Their motto is “Stories Rooted In Place  •  Writing That Moves The World”. This small press based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts focuses on publishing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with a clear focus on eco-literature, regional writing, and climate-aware storytelling. It is a woman-owned press, and you can see their full masthead by scrolling down here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2025 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

Shadowplay was established in 2023, and since then they’ve published three yearly issues. The most recent issue contains writing by 36 contributors, with six pieces available to read for free online. The print edition is distributed in bookstores, libraries, academic institutions, and through online retailers.

Shadowplay is open to submissions from October 15 through March 15. Poets may submit up to five pages, with each poem beginning on a separate page. Authors of fiction and nonfiction may submit up to 2,500 words. Authors may send one submission per genre per reading period. Submitting authors can expect a response within six months.

Authors published in Shadowplay receive one contributor copy of the print journal, and Shadowplay nominates authors published in the journal for the Pushcart Prize.

Shadowplay accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors withdraw writing published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work.

Shadowplay only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

If you would like to learn more or submit to Shadowplay, please visit their website here. 

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

Metaphors are supposed to help, like seasoning on fries. But some writers go full gourmet-mad-scientist and coat the fries in sixteen herbs, two existential crises, and one childhood memory. Suddenly nobody can taste the potato. That’s metaphor fatigue: when language flexes so hard it pulls something.

I blame poetry. And caffeine. And that one workshop guy who compared a breakup to “a cathedral collapsing in slow motion across three continents.” Calm down, sir. She just blocked your number. The earth did not fold in half.

Readers glaze over when a writer treats metaphors like automatic sprinklers—everything gets soaked whether it needs it or not. Feels like stepping into someone’s living room where the furniture keeps waving its arms trying to get your attention first. The lamp is a lonely spaceship. The rug is an emotional wound. The coffee mug is a haunted throat. Someone needs to unplug the dramatic outlet.

I experienced this personally last week. I tried describing my cat hopping off the counter, and my brain coughed up some ridiculous lunar-poetry nonsense about tides: “She descended like the moon surrendering to the tides.” I stared at this sentence for a while-horrified. Like it had personally insulted my family. My cat weighs eleven pounds and knocks over spoons for sport. Nothing about her “surrenders.” I deleted it and ate a cookie in shame. Sometimes a jump is just a jump.

The worst offenders are metaphors that try too hard to be clever — the kind that walk into the scene wearing sunglasses indoors, announcing themselves like, “Hello, ladies.” You can feel the writer sweating behind it, whispering, “This one’s gonna win me a prize.” No it’s not. It’s going to make your reader squint and start thinking about grocery lists.

Humor helps catch the problem. If the metaphor sounds like something that dude hanging behind the gas station—yes, the one with the mysterious hat and the “I swear I’m sober” voice—would whisper at stupid o’clock in the morning, probably toss it out. Example: “Her sorrow unfurled like an artisanal pretzel.” See? Honestly, that line should come with one of those ugly orange stickers you see on cheap appliances.

And writers—god love us—keep tossing metaphors around like they’re salt shakers, forgetting they’re supposed to be a sprinkle, not the whole damn support beam holding the house up. To land it in a very poetic manner to soothe your conscience: they are just seasoning baby, not scaffolding. You don’t build a house out of oregano. And you definitely don’t build a paragraph out of twelve competing metaphors, each fighting for the last brain cell your reader has left. It’s visual clutter. Emotional static. Like trying to watch a movie while someone vacuums and the dog is learning to bark in a new accent.

Let the literal world do some work. Literal moments are underrated. A character fumbles a key. A plate cracks. A shirt smells like someone else’s perfume. These are tiny landmines. And you don’t need to compare them to tornadoes wearing cowboy boots. Just let them be themselves, the little weirdos.

Sarcasm moment: I know, I know. How dare we ask writers to tone down their special sparkly word-magic. “But my metaphor about sadness being a walrus in a prom dress is my unique voice!” Sure, buddy. And my blender is a time machine. We’re all delusional before breakfast.

The trick — and I use “trick” loosely, like the way magicians use pigeons — is to apply metaphors only when the literal hits a wall. If the sentence already works, don’t decorate it like a Christmas tree left unsupervised near a preschool craft bin. Readers will feel the glitter in their teeth.

Metaphor fatigue happens when writers forget that images should land, not hover like confused drones above the page. Let the language breathe. Let objects stay objects. Let emotions show themselves without wearing opera costumes.

Because when everything is a wildfire, nothing burns — and your novel ends up smelling like overcooked metaphor stew.

Bio: Sabyasachi Roy is an academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. His poetry has appeared in The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dicey Brown, The Potomac, and more. He contributes craft essays to Authors Publish and has a cover image in Sanctuary Asia. His oil paintings have been published in The Hooghly Review. You can follow his writing on Substack here.

So far, the Carrier Bag has published one issue, themed “A New Leaf,” featuring eight poems and five stories. The digital journal is thoughtfully designed and free to read.

Now through February 13, The Carrier Bag is accepting submissions for their second issue, themed “A Look Into the Future”. For this issue, they are especially interested in speculative and science fiction (though in general they are open to all genres), and they are looking for writing that focuses on small future moments, rather than the future as a whole.

Authors of fiction may submit up to 3,000 words, and poets may submit up to three pages. Submitting authors can expect a response by March 14.  The Carrier Bag pays authors published in the journal $10.

The Carrier Bag accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They do not accept simultaneous submissions, and they only accept one submission per author per category. They do not accept previously published work.

The Carrier Bag only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting. They do not accept writing generated or assisted by AI.

If you would like to learn more or submit to The Carrier Bag, please visit their website here. 

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

Panorama
This is ‘the journal of travel, place, and nature’. For their upcoming issue, they want nonfiction (including new nature writing), fiction, poetry, art, and more on the Reflections theme. Regarding new nature writing, they say, “New nature writing is a genre-fluid form that encompasses memoir/travel/and nature writing with an especial foregrounding of the challenges of the Climate Crisis. It is a form that loves to transgress borders. We would be delighted to receive writing with an ethical dimension and ecological awareness that encourages the reader to mindfully negotiate the shared landscapes of the human and more-than-human. 1500-3000 words.” The submission deadline is  14 February 2026. Details here, here, and here.

Terrain.org
They publish literature, artwork, and commentary on place, climate, and justice. “Our online journal accepts … essays, fiction, articles, artwork, videos, and other contributions—material that reaches deep into the earth’s fiery core, or humanity’s incalculable core, and brings forth new insights and wisdom. We are seeking work in English (or translation) from around the world, and particularly Indigenous, Native, Black, Brown, and other historically marginalized and underrepresented voices as we expand our contributions on social, environmental, and climate justice.” They pay $50. Poetry is closed; fiction and nonfiction of up to 5,000 words are open till 30^th April 2026. They also accept submissions for ARTerrain and Letter to America sections. Details here and here.

Fork Apple Press: The Core Review
The Core Review is a project of Fork Apple Press, which publishes “themes and symbols of desire, consumption, spirituality, gender, environment, cultivation, and wildness. … We’re excited about pieces engaged with environmental justice, postcolonial feminism, queerness in all its humanizing and messy forms, and to support writers’ expansion beyond these topics in ways that move them. … We deconstruct the narratives that have traditionally dominated literary spaces and conventions and are committed to work that writes toward a future beyond prejudice and limitations. We invite work that upends, restructures, and reformats the predetermined conversation through genre blurring, experimentation, multimodality, and authenticity.” You can read more about them here. The  Core Review publishes prose (up to 6,000 words), visual narrative, and poetry. And, Fork Apple Press’s blog, The Juice Blog, publishes craft essays. The deadline for prose and poetry for The Core Review is end-March. Details here and here.
(Fork Apple Press also runs short fiction collection and poetry chapbook contests, which are fee-based.)

Violet Lichen Books: ECO25 – The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction
Violet Lichen Books is an imprint of Apex Book Company. This is their second annual reprint anthology. “Editors and publishers are encouraged to nominate their best works of speculative ecofiction published in 2025. … This is a best-of anthology and nominations are open to previously published stories only.” Authors can nominate their own works. “The story must be ecofiction; e.g., the plot or main themes must be focused on ecology, climate, the environment, conservation, the natural world, our relationship to animals and other non-human life, or related themes. A story merely set in nature or in a climate-based scenario is not enough to qualify, if it does not engage with these themes.” Stories must contain speculative elements. The original publication date must be between January 1 and December 31 2025. If the story is a translation, the eligibility year is the English publication date. And, stories published in Apex Magazine or in Apex Book Company anthologies or in works edited by staff are eligible. They pay $0.01/word for stories of 950 – 7,500 words, and the deadline is 31 January 2026. Details here and here.

Rotting Leaf Magazine
Rotting Leaf Magazine accepts eco-fiction (broadly defined), eco-horror, eco-Gothic/Antigothic, and more; any other uses of eco-fiction that challenge, shift, or obliterate the nature-society binary. They open for fiction as well as hybrid and experimental forms (no poetry) up to 1,500 words during the first week of each month, and stay open until a submission cap is reached. They pay $0.06/word. Details here.

Hollow and Sky
This is a new magazine, they are reading for their first issue. “We welcome work that arrives from a place of attention.
Hollow and Sky is a space for writing and art shaped by listening to the inner world, to the living world, and to the spaces where the two meet.” And, “We are interested in poetry, short prose, and visual work that engages with:

• Spiritual or metaphysical inquiry
• The natural world
• Interior landscapes
• Stillness, grief, wonder, memory, and restraint

We value work grounded in lived experience and honest observation. We are not interested in doctrine, instruction, or certainty.” They accept prose of up to 3,000 words, up to 5 poems, and art. The submission deadline is 5^th February 2026. Details here.

Catalogue Zine
Their About page says, “We’re a magazine based on helping people learn about and get involved in climate action, while demonstrating not only the scientific aspects of climate advocacy but how our lives are intertwined and intersect with our climate, cultures, and communities.” They want submissions on the Lifestyle theme; “Lifestyle represents the moving pieces that texture how you move around in this world. When we talk about the environment, “individual action” is core to the world because we all have equal stakes in taking care of the one place we can call home. This issue, we want to see (but is not limited to)
Thoughtful reflections on individual action: Are you using ChatGPT, partaking in fast fashion, or using public transportation when it’s an option? Your relationship with the Earth: do you feel connected to the ocean, the animals, and the plant life that are our neighbors on Earth? Are you being mindful about places you are traveling to, like Hawai’i? What small changes can we be making in our everyday life to make the greatest difference? How should we navigate adapting our lifestyle?
We want to see poetry, photography, art, short stories, personal essays, and informative pieces on this topic.” The deadline is 20^th February 2026. Details here.

Haven Speculative
They publish speculative fiction and poetry. They now have Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall submission periods; during each period, they have a month reserved for submissions from underrepresented writers, and a month for general submissions from all writers. They also publish climate crisis focused Dry and Wet issues each year. They accept up to 5,000 words for fiction, up to 5 poems, and pay $0.08/word for fiction, $20/poem. Till 31 January 2026, they want submissions from underrepresented writers only; “authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups.” And from 1^st to 28^th February, they will be open to submissions by all writers. Details here and here.

Channel Magazine
This Ireland-based magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. “We love work that speaks directly of a writer’s bond with and fear for our planet, and work that takes a local landscape, or a local flower, as its subject; equally, though, we love work that draws on an aspect of nature as setting, image or metaphor. We believe that all writing relies to some extent on historical engagement with nature, in that all human language has been shaped by our embeddedness in our shared environments.” Fiction and poetry are read during submission periods. Nonfiction (considered for both print and online) is accepted on an ongoing bases. They accept submissions in English and Irish. They pay €35 per printed page up to €250 per piece and with a minimum fee of €60 for single-page works; and €35 per 400 words, up to a maximum of €250 per piece, with a minimum fee of €60 for work published online. Details here.

The Other Folk: Fables for the Dying
“The Other Folk publishes short, horrific prose—by which we mean flash fiction, essays, and prose poems dealing with horror tropes, themes, and subjects”. For their Fables for the Dying series, they accept horror-themed flash and short fiction and nonfiction, prose poetry, and hybrid works; they’re interested in a wide range of horror subgenres, including eco-horror. They accept up to 1,500 words for prose and up to 500 words for prose poetry. Details here.

The Dodge
“The Dodge seeks fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and translation focused on place and environment. We’re excited by a wide range of forms and approaches, including hybrid and experimental work. We especially seek creative works that imagine a just future for the planet, and among other things, we’re interested in broadening the scope of stories, poems, and essays about nature, animals, and nonhuman life; we hope to see translations across borders, time, and space. 
Given our focus on environmental justice, we’re eager to champion emerging and marginalized voices underrepresented in magazine publishing and eco-writing, including writers and artists who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, people who are trans, gender-nonconforming, and LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, women, and others.
A note on writing about animals: We receive a lot of work focused on dogs, cats, and charismatic megafauna. Obviously, these nonhuman animals are important in our human lives, and people write great things about them, many of which we’ve published. But we’re really excited to read about other less explicable creatures as well. Eco-writing as we see it can include minerals, fungi, forests, insects, fire, etc.” At the time of writing, they were open for translation, nonfiction, and visual art. The deadline is 1^st April 2026. Details here and here.

Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.

People act like quitting a story is a crime. Like the Draft Police will show up at your door with a citation: “You abandoned a narrative at 38% completion. Please pay this emotional fine.” Relax. Walking away is a skill. A craft move. Like when chefs throw out a sauce because it tastes like regret. Or when you stop dating someone because they yell at baristas.

The trick is recognizing when the story has turned its back. There’s this weird moment—you sit down, open the doc, and the story’s just… there. Staring at you like a lamp that isn’t plugged in but somehow still judging your life choices. You tap a sentence, it doesn’t even twitch. Just gives you the vibe of, “Buddy, stop. I clocked out. Stop touching me.”

I once tried to force a novella to keep going for three months. Three. Months. The thing fought me harder than a toddler refusing vegetables. It kept dropping hints—awkward scenes, flat jokes, characters who had the emotional range of expired yogurt. I ignored all of it because I thought persistence was noble. Spoiler: persistence was stupid. The story wasn’t a struggling plant. It was a corpse. A polite, floral-scented corpse, but still.

There’s this idea floating around that every abandoned story is a personal failure. Nah. Some stories are just hit-and-run lessons. They show up, smack you with a weird metaphor, teach you one tiny technique, and then wander off into the fog like a raccoon philosopher.

Learning to step away is like learning the perfect time to leave a terrible party. Too early, and you feel rude. Too late, and you end up holding someone’s pet lizard while they explain cryptocurrency. But somewhere in the middle—right at the moment you sense the room going stale—you slip out gracefully. No guilt. No drama. No lizards.

Nobody mentions this, probably because it sounds unprofessional, but half-finished drafts sometimes kick harder than the polished ones. They’ve got that garage-sale energy—odd scraps, a character who feels like they’re hiding contraband, a location that smells faintly like wet socks and ambition. You flip through the pieces thinking, “Did I even write this, or was I sleep-texting?” These pieces are gifts. They’re like spare parts from IKEA that don’t belong to anything but might still fix a chair.

And honestly, sometimes the story just leaves you first. No note. No goodbye. All you find is a sentence fragment on the kitchen counter, something cryptic like “the lantern hummed…,” and now you’re supposed to interpret that like it’s ancient prophecy.

Let it go. Let it wander. There’s no point chasing a story that clearly faked its own death. Go write something that actually texts you back.

Leaving a story isn’t some dramatic slow-motion exit. It’s more like: you blink, shrug, mutter “yeah, whatever dude,” and slide your chair toward something that at least pretends to cooperate. The whole vibe is very “oh crap, I forgot I have clothes molding in the washer”—zero romance, all practicality.

And here’s the magic trick nobody mentions: the abandoned stories usually come back. When they feel like it. When you’ve moved on. When you’re in the middle of something else and suddenly the old draft kicks down the door yelling, “HEY, I HAVE AN ENDING NOW.” Rude, but comforting.

So yeah. Not every story wants to be finished.

Some only want to be found halfway, wink at you mysteriously, and then saunter off to annoy some other writer.

Grace is knowing when to wave back.

And then go eat snacks.

Bio: Sabyasachi Roy is an academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. His poetry has appeared in The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dicey Brown, The Potomac, and more. He contributes craft essays to Authors Publish and has a cover image in Sanctuary Asia. His oil paintings have been published in The Hooghly Review. You can follow his writing on Substack here.

Root Smoke will begin publishing in February of this year, and right now they are seeking submissions for their first publications. They plan to publish three times a week, featuring poetry every Tuesday, fiction every Thursday, and an essay, interview, or artwork every Sunday. Then on the last Wednesday, they will share a compilation of everything published that month.

In general, Root Smoke is looking for memorable writing with emotional resonance and “clarity balanced with mystery”. Poets may submit up to five poems. Authors of fiction may submit up to three flashes or short stories, totaling 8,000 words or fewer. Authors of creative nonfiction may submit up to two pieces, totaling 6,000 words or fewer. Root Smoke also accepts book reviews, interviews, and hybrid writing.

Root Smoke accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors withdraw writing published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work, and they do not accept writing generated or assisted by AI.

Root Smoke only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

If you would like to learn more or submit to Root Smoke, please visit their website.

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

News:

Recently I came across a brand new journal called PERUSE LIT. At the bottom of their webpage they share “PERUSE LIT never charges for editorial consideration or inclusion. Optional promotional services are available for authors who want expanded reach, and purchasing them has no impact on editorial decisions.” This is very troubling to me because while it doesn’t officially violate our guiding principals it is very much an up sell and it seems perplexing to me. Surely the editors of a journal are already motivated to promote their journal and the work they publish because it very much befits them. The idea that you would give your hard work to a journal for free and then for them to ask for your money to promote it seems outlandish to me. i’ve certainly never encountered it before in the 15 years I’ve been part of the literary journal comunity.

Harlequin France is switching over to AI translators. You can read more about it here and here.

Poetry Foundation, which has faced a lot of negative publicity in the last five years, is once again facing scrutiny. This time it is over program cuts. You can learn more here.

Subscriber Success Stories:

E.H. Jacobs’ poem Away Games was published by Streetlight Mag.

Denise Diehl’s The Card was published in The Academy of the Heart and Mind.

Tuesday Thomson‘s flash Leander was published on 101 words.

Sara Winslow‘s short play, My Body, Myself, was published by Knee Brace Press.

Laurinda Lind had a haiku published in Leaf, and a poem in Cold Moon Journal, and another in Snowfall & Starlight.

Richard Simonds’s short story What Waited for Us in the Garden was published by Eternal Haunted Summer.

Tiphanie Anderson’s poem Across the Liminal Divide was published by Poetry Habitat.

Jay Brodbar’s poem Still Life was published by Grain.

Dr. T. M. Asla and Jessica Augustsson’s The Santa Shank was published in Professor Feiff’s Trans-Dimensional Travelogue anthology, from Jayhenge Publishing.

Mark Scheel‘s creative nonfiction piece Fitting Pipe with a College Degree was published by the 105 Meadowlark Reader.

Melissa Sokulski‘s personal essay, Solvitur Ambulando, was published by Wild Greens.

Lia Tjokro’s short story The Caretaker of Tears was published in The Brussles Review, and they also did a podcast interview with Lia.

Madelaine Zadik‘s personal essay, The Photograph, was published in December in ContingulousLyt.

Maria B. Olujic’s essay The Tongue Remembers was published in AGNI and reprinted in Lit Hub. Her opinion piece The Words We Learn to Fear appeared in Public Seminar.

Camille Hernández-Ramdwar‘s short story The Flying River was published by Entre Magazine.

Jonni Dunn’s novel excerpt Balcones Fault was published as a short story by The Broken Teacup.

Stephanie Ross’s poem Arbutus was published by the League of Canadian Poets’ Fresh Voices.

Ellen Acconcia’s personal essay Tornadoes was published by The Drift and Dribble Miscellany. 

Ayame’s short story The Valkyrie’s Lesson was published in Mythaxis Magazine.

John Tures’s short story The Price of Liberty was published by Dekalb Voices Review and his short story A Less Than Glowing Review From The Radiology Department was published by Bunker Squirrel.

Debra Lee was interviewed on the Author’s Show for her novel Pullman.

Donna Faulkner‘s poem Rumours was published in The Alchemy Spoon.

Tuesday Thomson’s story Susannah’s Solution was be published in the anthology Search for the Any Key from Wolfsinger Publications .

Vern Bryk‘s short story Erie View was published in the Great Lakes Review.

Monica Goertzen Hertlein‘s short story Key to an Unsuitable Birthright was published in the anthology Search for the Any Key from Wolfsinger Publications.

Chris Morey’s short story Lost In Translation was published in Ink Pantry. 

Mike Sluchinski had two poems published in the Tulane Review, and his poem Fairy Wands published by Eternal Haunted Summer. Additionally one of his poems was featured in Remedios Varo: Ekphrastic Writing Responses published by the Ekphrastic Review.

John Tures’s short story Welcome to America was published by Jerry Jazz Musician.

Bart Plantenga‘s Interview with Malcolm Paul was published by Gonzo Weekly, and a number of his short stories were published in the International Times including WET DREAMS OF THE POPE and The Woman with One Too Many Faces.

Rachel Turney‘s poetry chapbook, Women Making Soup Together, is available from Vinegar Press.

Duane L. Hermann’s short story Rabbit Boy was published in Chewers.

Please send us an email at success.stories@authorspublish.com if you have a publication success you want to share in our next update. You must include a link to the publication. You can also include a link to your website (if you have one), and the publisher/journals main landing page. To be featured in the February update your work must be published no earlier than December. Work available for pre-order can be shared. Please note that we are only listing work that has been traditionally published by literary journals, magazines, or traditional presses. We are not covering vanity presses or self-published books. We are not vetting presses before adding them to this list. We can only list three successes per person per update.

Bio: Caitlin Jans has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-founder of Authors Publish and The Poetry Marathon. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including: The Literary Review of Canada, The Fiddlehead, Jelly Bucket, The Penn Review, The Adroit Journal, and Killer Verse. Her prose and poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, BILiNE, The Best Small Fictions Anthology, and The Best of the Net. You can learn more at her website or follow her on Facebook,

In today’s world, writing a great book often isn’t enough. To find your readers, you have to promote it, a daunting task for the introverted author who finds self-promotion to be an  exhausting performance. The good news is that you can market your work effectively without resorting to extroversion.

Reframe Your Goal: Build a Corner, Not a Stage
Forget the pressure to shout for attention on a crowded stage. Your goal is to create a warm, inviting corner that the right readers will seek out. Start small by sharing relatable glimpses of your writing life and creative process. The people drawn to this authenticity are your target audience, and they will become your most loyal fans.

Play to Your Strengths
Your quiet nature is not a liability; it’s a unique asset. Channel your introspective energy into a thoughtful blog post or a personal newsletter. This type of long-form, intimate content attracts readers who want a genuine connection, making them feel like valued insiders rather than a passive audience.

Observe and Listen
Instead of jumping on every trend, become a strategic observer. Watch for the ones that fit your niche and that you’d feel comfortable joining. Spend time learning what readers in your genre are talking about, then create a blog post, Pinterest board, or reading list that directly responds to what you’ve learned. This turns listening into your most powerful marketing tool.

The Soft Launch
When it’s time to promote a new work, focus your energy on your established tribe. Give your newsletter subscribers or dedicated followers exclusive content, early access, or behind-the-scenes details. By providing them with value, you transform them into a powerful, organic marketing team who are happy to spread the word on your behalf.

The bottom line is you don’t need to change who you are to succeed. You just need a strategy that honors your nature. It brings to mind the famous line from ‘Field of Dreams’: “If you build it, they will come.” Build your corner with depth and authenticity. Slowly but surely, the right readers will find you and stay.

Bio: Adesuwa Egbon is a writer whose work has appeared in Brittle Paper, DYSH, and Arewaworld among others. She is passionate about helping writers develop sustainable and authentic creative careers.