Thank you for your interest in submitting to Guernica. We publish poetry, essays, reportage/journalism, criticism, and fiction, and we offer honoraria of $50 for poetry, $100 for original essays, and $150 for original fiction and for reportage/journalism.
You'll find guidelines for poetry, nonfiction, and fiction below. Our reading times are, on average, 12-16 weeks, though they can be longer. We're an all-volunteer staff, and we're grateful for your patience. And yes, we read every submission — so it's greatly appreciated if you withdraw work that is accepted elsewhere.
We do not accept or review: interviews, book reviews, flash or genre fiction, pitches of any kind for any genre, or submissions of any kind from publicists.
We only accept:
- electronic submissions using the Submittable system; no emails, please.
- one submission at a time; no multiple submissions.
- original, previously unpublished manuscripts. Your work must not have been published elsewhere, including on your personal website, blog, or social media channels. Translations may have previously appeared in their original languages, but not in English.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, as long as you immediately withdraw your submission and notify Guernica that your piece has been accepted elsewhere.
Please note:
- Guernica will hold exclusive print and digital rights to your published piece for 90 days, after which you will retain the rights; your story will remain on our website in perpetuity.
- We are an all-volunteer organization. Allow at least sixteen weeks for a response.
- Please take care to submit to the correct section. If you submit to the wrong category, you will receive an automatic rejection when we reach your work, and you'll be instructed to resubmit (where you'll join the back of the queue).
Thank you for your interest in Guernica! We look forward to reading your work.
Guernica Global Spotlights excerpts previously published work outside the Western corridors of literary taste-making and prestige. We aim to highlight global innovation and experimentation in fiction and nonfiction – especially when it blurs the boundaries between genres – and to boost independent publishers and their writers. We welcome works in translation, including those that retain inflections of the original.
In fiction, we’re looking for short stories, novel excerpts, and hybrid texts. We welcome fiction born of different literary traditions that refract and reflect upon their contexts – fiction that is adventurous, unapologetic, experimental. We are interested in short stories, novel excerpts, and hybrid texts.
In nonfiction, we’re looking for essays, reportage, memoir, criticism, and hybrid forms – but we’re especially keen to see nonfiction that pushes against established forms or blurs boundaries, either by building new modes or complicating old ones.
Submissions in either genre should be between 3,000 and 7,000 words, published within the last year by magazines, zines, and independent publishing houses. We’re interested in work being written and published outside of the US and Canada, Western Europe, and Australia, but we are keenly interested in work by Indigenous writers in those geographies. (If your submission was originally published in the US, Canada, Western Europe, or Australia, by a non-Indigenous press, it will be declined without review.)
Writers, editors, and translators from these publications are eligible to submit work. Please include the name and contact information of the rights-holder (the person authorized to allow Guernica to re-publish the work in whole or in part). Please also specify which genre you’re submitting for. We aim to respond to all submissions quickly, and in no later than eight weeks.
Guernica offers an honorarium of $100, to the rights-holder, for Spotlights.
Before submitting, please review the general guidelines at the top of this page.
This form is for journalism/reportage, essays, memoir, criticism, and argument of 2,500 words or more. Please send the full manuscript of an original prose work you would like us to consider.
If yours is a piece of journalism/reportage, please add REPORTAGE to the subject line.
If yours is a time-sensitive piece, please add TIMELY to the subject line.
As a reminder, we do not accept pitches, interviews, or book reviews, although we welcome longform critical essays that engage several texts/ideas in a single piece.
Before submitting, please review the general guidelines at the top of this page.
This form is for submitting poetry. You may submit up to five poems at one time, but please do not submit more than one poetry submission at a time to Guernica.
We only publish original, unpublished poetry. Your work must not have been published elsewhere, including on your personal website or blog. Work in translation may have appeared elsewhere, but not in English, and permissions should be secured before submitting.
As a reminder:
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted; please notify us if the poem is published elsewhere.
- Guernica will hold exclusive print and digital rights to the published poem for 90 days, after which our rights become non-exclusive; your poem will remain on our website in perpetuity.
Before submitting, please review the general guidelines at the top of this page.
This form is for fiction submissions, which should be no fewer than 2,000 and no more than 7,000 words. Please submit only one story, or one excerpt from an unpublished novel, at a time. Works in translation are especially welcome as long as you can convey the rights to publish the piece.
We do not consider flash fiction; submissions sent in hard copy or via email; and or serialized longer works.