Burningword Literary Journal accepts poetry, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction submissions for publication. Please read through the brief guidelines and publishing schedule before you submit.

Genres and Details (revised for 2017)

• Poetry in any form or style. Your poetry submission may contain up to five (5) poems, may be submitted as one file, run fewer than 10 pages in length, and must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed so long as you withdraw them when accepted elsewhere.
• Flash fiction (a.k.a. microfiction, short-short story, sudden fiction, etc.) submissions should aim for a word-count of 300-500 words or less per piece, may contain up to two (2) pieces per submission, may be submitted as one file, should run fewer than 5 pages in length, and must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed so long as you withdraw them when accepted elsewhere.
• Flash nonfiction up to 300 words. You may submit up to two (2) pieces per issue, may be submitted as one file, should run fewer than 5 pages in length, and must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed so long as you withdraw them when accepted elsewhere.
• Please keep your email address updated in Submittable because that’s how we notify you of our editorial decisions. We now charge a modest submission fee of $3 to help offset the cost of maintaining the manuscript system and web-hosting. Because of this change, we now encourage multiple pieces per submission, as outlined above.

Important Guidelines

• The submission review process is double-blind; please remove all instances of your name from your work before uploading it!
• Your name (or pen name), along with contact info. and third-person bio should be entered using the submission form. Those items will be published with the selected work, per the terms of use agreement. Do not include any information that you do not wish to be shared publicly!
• Visual art and similar decoration should not be included in your submission. If such elements are critical to your work, please consider another publication.
• If you need to withdraw a submission for any reason, please do so within our submission system.
• If you use a pen name, be sure to use that in place of your real name, in all instances.
• Your name (or pen name), along with contact info. and third-person bio will be published as is, along with your selected work.
• If you need to modify a submission for any reason, including your name (or pen name), contact email, biography, etc., please do so within our submission system. Modifications to work, including byline and bio, are not possible after publication.
• We accept simultaneous submissions and prefer unpublished material.

Guidelines After Publication

• There is no ability to “proof” your work after it has been chosen for publication. Errors made by Burningword Literary Journal to either the print or electronic versions will be corrected by Burningword ASAP. Please let us know if you find an error.
• We accept simultaneous submissions; however, if we accept your work for publication, it is your responsibility to immediately notify all other magazines it is no longer available.
• The authors we publish receive a complimentary eBook issue and reduced rates for print copies.

Schedule

Burningword is a quarterly web, print and digital publication with issues published January 5, April 5, July 5, and October 5. The cut-off date for submissions is the 5th day of the prior month for each quarter:

• January Issue Submissions open October 1st and close December 5th
• April Issue Submissions open January 1st and close March 5th
• July Issue Submissions open April 1st and close June 5th
• October Issue Submissions open July 1st and close September 5th

Copyrights, Reprinting, and Attribution

Burningword Literary Journal typically asks for the rights to publish an author’s work in a single print edition, an epub version of the same issue, and also in future retrospective editions of the journal. We make our entire journal available to subscribers, with the most recent issues available to all. After publication, all rights revert to our authors, and if you wish to reprint, repost, or redistribute their work in any form, it is your responsibility to contact the writer and secure permission. Please take a quick look at the Copyright Notice and our Terms of Use. Our policies were created to help protect your rights, and ours, too.

Submit

The process is simple and will allow you to keep track of where you’re sending your writing. Good luck!

Submit Here!