Black Warrior Review
Full details
If Submittable is not accessible to you, please email blackwarriorreview@gmail.com for further instructions. Unfortunately, we no longer accept physical submissions, with the exception of those from incarcerated writers, who may send their work for no fee to the address at the bottom of this page.
Black and Indigenous submitters may email their submissions, for no fee, to the editor corresponding to the submission’s genre: Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, and Nonfiction Editor. (Please include a brief cover letter and bio.) Otherwise, email and mailed submissions will not be considered. BWR pays a one-year subscription and a lump-sum fee for all works published. Rights revert to author upon publication; please credit Black Warrior Review with first publication if the work is republished elsewhere. We encourage you to read Black Warrior Review before submitting. Sample issues are available for $12; one-year subscriptions for $20.
Black Warrior Review is a paying market. Currently, we offer royalty payments to regular-submission print contributors between $100 and $220, depending on the length of pieces. These numbers are subject to change per issue and differ for contributors to Boyfriend Village (our online edition) and for chapbook and featured-art contributors.
GENERAL RULES & GUIDELINES
The average response time for submissions is between 1 and 6 months. If you have not received a response after 6 months, please check on the status of your submission in Submittable. If you encounter any problems, email us at managingeditor.bwr@gmail.com.
Please wait one month after receiving a response to submit again.
We do not consider previously published work.
Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please tell us if it is a simultaneous submission, and notify us immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere. If we accept your piece, please withdraw it from consideration elsewhere.
Please do not mix genres in the same submission. Our online issue is currently an exception to this rule.
Past contributors and contest winners, please wait three years from the date of your publication to resubmit work.
Past contributors and contest winners to the print journal may submit to the online journal after waiting only one year from the date of print publication. Past contributors to the online journal should also wait a year from the date of publication before submitting to the print journal. We view these journals as separate creatures, having meaningful conversations late into the night.
Students, faculty, staff, and administrators currently or formerly (within four years) affiliated with the University of Alabama are ineligible for consideration or publication.
We especially strive to magnify voices that are traditionally and systemically silenced. Writers of color, queer and trans writers, disabled writers, immigrant writers, fat writers and femmes: you are all welcome and wanted here.
FICTION
We want your weird. Your weird weird, your crooked fiction, your introverted child who doesn’t fit in. But no cheap thrills or one-trick ponies, please.
Rather than experimentation for the sake of it, think experimentation because the story cannot be told otherwise. Stories with innovative forms encouraged.
BWR fiction very much seeks the non-canon; stories outside western traditions; stories that defy any such categorization.
Please send work under 7,000-ish words. One piece at a time.
Send us your fiction here.
NONFICTION
An Invitation:
We are looking for work that challenges the state: of white supremacy and the means of meaning. This space is reserved for tendrils of being (that are) the spirit of revolution, drawings of X, and/and/or creating windows, towards new conceptions of holistic community and the good. We are excited by questions like: what is possible(?) in pieces. We are especially grateful to host the unapologetic work of BIPOC writers and Queer writers. This space is a book-shaped glass … and we wish for your pieces to find belonging, a home or safe house—rest—however you see it.
Owing to medium, the considerable ceiling looks like 7,000 words (and just 1 piece).
Please write here.
POETRY
BWR is looking for poems. All kinds. If we, BWR, list only certain poems, we won’t find all the other ones. That would be very silly. Which is just one kind of poem that BWR would enjoy reading. Below, you will find a list of more kinds, just a slice of a much longer list that had to be cut short for time. That could be another interesting kind of poem, as we, BWR, say it to ourselves. Let’s start there and keep going & going (which is where you come in):
Poems that were cut short for time. Poems that are silly. Poems with Hearts of Glass. Cherry-coloured funks. Iceblink Lucks. The Rom-Coms Gone Wrong. Also, Rainshelters. Punishers. Poems of asking. Of invitation. Of longing. Of a moment. Moments. The Moment(s). Also, Answering. Arrivals. Resistance. Critique. Beauty. The Whole of the Moons. Deliveries and deliverances. Omens. Oblivions. Relief. Amens.
Up to 5 poems. Maximum 10 pages. One document. Titles separated by commas in the “Submission Title” field. Query if longer than 10 pages.
Send us your poetry here.
GRAPHIC WRITING, COMICS, & ART
Although we usually solicit one featured artist per issue, we do welcome submissions of striking visual narratives (think: graphic novel or memoir in short form). We are looking to publish one or two graphic essays/stories/poems, or pieces of sequential art per issue.
We publish graphic writing in grayscale. Submit in .jpg, .tiff, or .pdf format.
Send us your visual submissions here.
TRANSLATION
BWR celebrates world literature and translation. Right now, we are looking for work translated into English in all genres—particularly poetry, prose, and drama. While we do appreciate updated translations of classic works and lesser known works by well-known authors, we gravitate more toward work from authors who have not yet been translated into English or found a large English-language audience. For more guidelines, please read our general calls for submission to get an idea RE: the kinds of work we publish.
We only publish translated works that are completed, self-sufficient, and under ten pages. Works that have already been published in its original language are preferred.
In your cover letter, please provide: an account of the text and its author, a short biography of the translator, and any other information that you deem relevant. If possible, please include the work in the source language. It is the translator’s responsibility to secure permissions for publication.
Please wait at least one month before resubmitting.
Send us your translations here.
BOYFRIEND VILLAGE (ONLINE ISSUE)
Every spring, Black Warrior Review seeks submissions for our online issue, Boyfriend Village.
Boyfriend Village is open for submissions from the date of call for submissions until March 31, 2020.
While themed, this is very much open to interpretation. If you think your boyfriend might belong in our village, please send them along. Unfamiliar with Boyfriend Village? Click here to learn more.
There is one submission category for all genres. We accept fiction, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid, visual and multimedia art, as well as sound collage, video, games, and more. You may use your cover letter to tell us as much or as little about your work as you like.
Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Send prose pieces no longer than 7,000 words. For flash (pieces under 1,000 words), you may include up to three prose pieces in a submission. For poetry, you may send us up to five poems, with a maximum submission length of 10 pages. For graphic, audio, and visual work, if Submittable accepts the file type, so will we! Color images most welcome.
There is a $3 submission fee. Submission fees are used to pay contributors.
We pay all contributors to Boyfriend Village.
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