The Big Picture

We accept previously unpublished poetry, fiction, flash, and nonfiction. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know right away if your work is accepted elsewhere. You can include a cover letter full of amusing tidbits about you or of fascinating trivia you learned from a podcast recently, but we are not interested in reading a list of the journals your work has appeared in. What is important to us is that you are sending us writing that feels urgent and necessary, work that is ready to go out for a stroll in the world. As a journal, we are committed to publishing diverse voices of all kinds. 

We only accept submissions via our Submittable page. No email submissions, please. 

We open from the 15th of each month and stay open until the end of the month. (There are occasional exceptions when we skip a month because our editors need to catch up on some sleep, and we will let you know.)

Response Time

We know how nerve-wracking it can be to check your inbox every morning, hoping to hear back from a journal, so we do our best to make our turnaround time as quick as possible.   We will try to respond to every submission within two months, if not sooner.  Please do not send more than one submission in any genre until you have heard back from us. Feel free to query after 2 months if you would like to give us a nudge. 

Payment

We pay $10/per piece. We wish it were more, and hopefully it will be in the future. We would love to pay a million dollars/piece, since that is how much we feel you’re worth. We will also give your work a forever home on our website, sing your praises, and always love you! We nominate for prizes and anthologies, including Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions.

Free and Fee Submissions 

Unfortunately, we need to charge for submissions. We are a small volunteer staff with a limited budget, and this charge covers our operating costs so we can keep the lights on. However, we want to ensure that submitting to Peatsmoke remains accessible to all.  We always offer free submissions for marginalized writers, as it is so important to us to support the words of those who have been traditionally underrepresented in the writing community. Additionally,  for any writer who is for any reason unable to pay the $3 submission fee, please send us an email at editors@peatsmokejournal.com letting us know, and we will waive your submission fee.

When we’re able, we also offer free submission periods. Keep an eye out — we announce on our social media. 

Rights

 If published with us, we ask that you give Peatsmoke First North American Serial Rights and electronic media rights to your work. The copyright reverts back to the author upon publication, but we ask that Peatsmoke be acknowledged if the work is subsequently published in book form or reprinted in another venue.

AI Policy

We do not publish AI-generated work. It bums us out. Please do not send it to us. We want to read your words, your ideas, and your thoughts. 

Other Notes

While we wish we could give feedback on each submission, the sheer volume of work we receive makes that impossible. However, for feedback from our editors and other very cool writers, check out our workshops. 

Genre-Specific Guidelines

We aren't looking for particular styles or types of writing, but here are some things we consider when reading:

Fiction

We’re into fiction that explores the human condition with empathy and curiosity. We love reading fully realized characters who are pushed and challenged, and clear, carefully-crafted sentences that bring them to life. Speculative and experimental work is absolutely welcome here. 

Important: One story per submission between 1,001-7,000 words. 

Flash

We love flash with strong sentence-level writing and compelling images that hold a moment and explode it, taking us to unexpected depths in a small space. We're excited to receive both flash fiction and flash CNF. If it's important to you that we know the genre you're submitting, please drop us a note in your cover letter to tell us. Realism,  speculative, and experimental work, or a mix of all of these, is very welcome. Feel free to get weird — we’re here for it. 

Important: An individual flash should be no longer than 1000 words. You may include up to 3 pieces in your submission.  

Poetry

Nothing excites us more than a stellar combination of image and sound. We’re interested in how the two collide and inform each other and the work they’re doing. Images that have energy are the best images. Sounds and forms that follow content are the best sounds and forms. We want to be able to understand what’s going on in your poem by the weight and lilt of it in our mouths. We read everything aloud. We pay attention to line breaks. If we’ve seen it before, we don’t want to publish it. Please send up to three poems of any length.

Nonfiction

We aren't looking for particular styles or types of writing, but here are some things we consider when reading: We love nonfiction pieces we can’t classify. We most admire essays that (like poetry) emphasize image, that show the process of discovery. Please send only one piece at a time between 1,500-7,000 words. If you have flash CNF, please submit it in our Flash category.

Artwork

Peatsmoke features artists in each issue, with art paired with each story and poem and displayed prominently on our main page. We are into any kind of 2-D art that appears well on a website, with the exception of comics. Send us your collage, your photography, your paintings, your drawings, your woodcuts, your etchings, your linotypes, your sand art — whatever it is, we'd love to check it out. For our consideration, please give us a submission of 5-10 images. Please send only one submission at a time, and wait until you have received a response before submitting again.

Sometimes it can take months, even up to a year, before we accept or decline, a submission, especially if we like your work. We pair art and writing, so finding a match can take time, but we realize the long wait can be frustrating. If you want an update, feel free to send our art editor, Shagufta, a message after it has been three months since you submitted. If you would like to have your submission opened for editing to replace art that was accepted elsewhere, let us know at any time.General Guidelines