Gutter Mag

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Submit to Gutter Magazine!

Gutter is a magazine of new Scottish and international writing, dedicated to creating space for poetry and prose in Scotland and beyond. We look for work that challenges, re-imagines or undermines the status quo; that pushes at the boundaries of form and function; that is striking and beautiful. We we believe great prose and poetry transcends boundaries, and reject any distinction between literary and genre, between high art and popular culture. We look for work from writers, established, emerging or new, who know what they want to say, know how they want to say it, and say so with confidence.

Each issue of Gutter also features essays in our non-fiction section, Scance, which takes its name from the versatile Scots word for all things investigative, exploratory, conversational and unbelievable. Gutter is open to essays on any subject - previous essays have covered birdwatching, substance abuse, community care and historical memoir – as long as the work has literary merit.

Successful contributors will be paid a flat fee of £25 for work published in the mag, regardless of length or style. This will be paid by cheque made out to the author name, please specify if you wish to be paid under a different name. Published authors will also receive a complimentary copy of the issue.

Gutter is operated by a small team and we receive a high volume of submissions. As such, we are presently unable to always send responses to submissions. Please take a note of the submission deadline and kindly refrain from sending work submitted to Gutter simultaneously to multiple magazines. If you have not received a response to your submission within six months, please feel free to submit elsewhere. 

Good luck!

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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Poetry submissions can consist of up to five poems, totalling no more than 120 lines. In the case of multiple poems, please send them within a single text document.

• Prose submissions can run to to 3000 words, but no more. Please only send us one prose submission per issue.

• All work must be previously unpublished both in print and online.

• Work should be submitted as .docx or .rtf files.

• Include your name and word count in the header of each page of your word document.

• Sticking to Standard Manuscript Format isn’t essential, but please do format your work in 12 point Garamond, Times New Roman or Arial.

• Submit your work using the file name format of: ‘firstname_surname_prose’ or ‘firstname_surname_poetry’. This lets us direct your work to the editors best suited to consider it. Files that are misnamed won’t meet the automatic criteria for submission and may be missed.

• Also bear in mind Gutter’s magazine format may mean some experimental layouts are easier to translate to the page than others. In the case of concrete poetry or prose with experimental layouts, please also supply the work as a PDF, for our designer to reference should the submission be successful.

• All submissions should be sent via our online portal.