Porter House Review

Full details

Porter House Review seeks previously unpublished, original works. We are dedicated to providing financial compensation for any and all creative works accepted for publication. Work must be previously unpublished in print or online, and, if accepted, must not be published anywhere else before it is published in Porter House Review. Simultaneous submissions are accepted provided the writer immediately withdraw their work if it is accepted for publication elsewhere. We typically respond to submissions between two and six months.
Reading Period: We read solicited work year-round. We typically read unsolicited work between September 1st to December 1st, and February 1st to May 1st of each academic year. Work submitted outside our reading period is returned unread. Please send only one submission per reading period.
Submission fee: PHR charges a $3 submission fee to cover the annual cost of Submittable and pay all of our contributors. Until we are able to pay for Reviews and Field Notes publications, there will be no submission fees for these two categories.
Please submit via our submission manager.

Fiction

Our review seeks to publish fiction that is emotionally affecting, haunting, bizarre, and in firm control of the machinations of storytelling (e.g. character, scene, plot, and momentum). We welcome both traditional short stories, flash fiction, and other hybrid forms.
Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and not exceed 5,000 words. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Nonfiction

We publish nonfiction that involves discovery for the reader and the writer, creating a dynamic of mutual construction through literary dialogue. Personal essays, creative nonfiction flash, memoir, and literary reportage are all welcome.
Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and not exceed 4,000 words. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Poetry

We seek poetic works that capture experience by reinvigorating the language of the everyday, or surprising readers with novel, rarefied text. We are particularly interested in poetry that champions inventive forms and content.
Submissions should be typed, paginated, and not exceed five poems. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Flash

In flash fiction and nonfiction, we’re looking for all the emotional impact of a 20-page narrative in 1,000 words or less. Editors read for narrative flash that has beginnings, middles, and endings, as well as sentences that contain entire worlds.
Submissions should be typed, paginated, and not exceed three pieces of flash that are each 1,000 words or less. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Visual Art

We seek to showcase artwork of all forms and mediums, including illustrations, paintings, sculpture, photography, graphic and digital works, and more.
We accept JPEG files and prefer landscape, high-resolution images. Please do not submit more than 5 works at a time.
At the moment, we can offer $25 per accepted piece.

Reviews

We’re looking to publish reviews that are as voice-driven as they are incisive. Submissions should teach our readers as much about the minds composing them as they do about the text that is under consideration. While we primarily publish book reviews, we’re also interested in literary interrogations of non-traditional material such as music, film, television, and comic books. Reviews of newer books—received either before or within six months after the reviewed book’s publication date—are prioritized.

While PHR is currently unable to pay for reviews, we hope to change that in the near future.

Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and not exceed 2,000 words. Include your name, mailing address, and email on the first page of your manuscript.

Field Notes

Field Notes is Porter House Review’s craft blog. We are interested in pieces that use the intimacy of a personal essay to explore the ins and outs of the literary world: craft, publishing, conferences, writing programs, and so on. We are looking for work that illuminates the writing life and demystifies the mechanics of writing and publishing. We especially aim to help break down barriers that exist for writers from marginalized backgrounds.

While we don’t have a strict word limit, we are most interested in pieces that run somewhere around 2500 words.

We also accept pitches: In the submission page, include a brief (no more than 300 words) pitch of your piece, as well as a brief bio.

• All submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and paginated.
• Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.
• Please do not submit work that has been previously published.
• All work must be submitted through our Submittable portal. We cannot accept paper or emailed submissions.