Guernica is Open for Submissions!
We are excited to consider your work for publication. Please carefully review our submission guidelines before submitting.
General Guidelines
- Submission Platform: All submissions must be sent via Submittable. We do not accept submissions via email or postal mail.
- Familiarize Yourself: The best way to understand our editorial approach is by reading recent issues of Guernica. We encourage you to explore the magazine before submitting.
- Accepted Genres: We welcome submissions in the following genres:
- Fiction
- Nonfiction (personal essays, reportage, etc.)
- Poetry
- Visual art (illustrations, photography, etc.)
- Interviews
Please note: we do not accept pitches. Only completed pieces will be considered. - Original Work: We consider only previously unpublished work. (Note: We do consider previously unpublished translations of work that has been published in another language.)
- Length: While we have no strict word limit, most pieces we publish fall within the 2,000–7,000-word range, with the majority around 4,000–5,000 words.
- Cover Letter: Please include a brief cover letter with your submission that contains:
- Your name
- A short bio
- Contact information
- The title of your submission
- Simultaneous Submissions: Simultaneous submissions are accepted. However, please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- Response Time: We aim to respond to submissions within 6 or so months.
Thank you for considering Guernica for your work. We look forward to reading your submissions!
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.
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 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 Please submit only one story, or one excerpt from an unpublished novel, at a time.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.
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.
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 across fiction, nonfiction, and book reviews—especially where writing 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.
Guernica Global Spotlights: Fiction and Nonfiction
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—work that is adventurous, unapologetic, and formally inventive.
In nonfiction, we’re looking for essays, reportage, memoir, criticism, and hybrid forms. We are especially keen to see nonfiction that pushes against established forms or complicates them, either by building new modes or reworking existing 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), and specify which genre you’re submitting for. We aim to respond to all submissions within eight weeks.
Guernica offers an honorarium of $100, payable to the rights-holder, for Spotlights.
Guernica Global Spotlights: Book Reviews
Guernica is delighted to launch Global Spotlights: Book Reviews, a bimonthly section dedicated to book reviews from outside mainstream Western publishing circles. This initiative extends the mission of Global Spotlights by highlighting both writers and publishing ecosystems operating beyond dominant literary centers. The series seeks to uplift voices historically cast as peripheral, while championing literary diversity, experimentation, and audacity at the intersection of arts and politics.
We are seeking 1,200–2,500-word reviews of recently published or forthcoming fiction and nonfiction. Reviews should engage with the book’s literary merits, tensions, and questions, while situating it within broader historical and cultural contexts. We are especially interested in reviews that articulate why a book matters—now, and to you—with clarity, specificity, and a strong personal voice. While reviews should focus on a single title, we welcome references to other works the book may be in conversation with, whether locally, globally, or across traditions.
We welcome submissions from critics and writers covering books published outside the West (understood as Australia, Canada, Western Europe, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), as well as works by Indigenous writers within those regions. We consider both books originally written in English and those in English translation.
To submit, please include:
- A brief description of the book, including publication date (original and translated, if applicable)
- The key themes or questions your review explores
- A short bio, including any personal connection to the book
- The completed review as an attachment
Deadline: 1 July 2026, 11:59 PM GMT
Guernica offers an honorarium of $100, payable upon publication. We aim to respond to submissions within eight weeks.
If you have an interview to share, please submit the interview in its entirety. We do not accept interview pitches at this time. In your cover letter, please describe why you think the interview would be a good fit for readers of Guernica. Interviews should also contain an introduction. We encourage you to check our Interviews archive for examples!
Guernica publishes art-related writing that engages with a wide range of timely critical, cultural and political issues. We promote perspectives that demonstrate an international outlook and a strong commitment to examining art’s interaction with the world at large.
We prefer full-length, previously unpublished submissions between 500 and 2,500 words. Only highly original, innovative and well-considered pitches are considered.
Please note that we do not accept academic essays, book or exhibition reviews.
Art and Film Submissions
Video submissions should be less than 8 minutes in length and permanently accessible on a third party hosting site such as YouTube or Vimeo. Please send a link to no more than one work.
Artist and project profiles can take the form studio visits, portfolio views, and short interviews. Please send no more than 10-15 images along with a 150-word description of the project submitted for publication.