We are currently OPEN for Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction submissions for our inaugural issue. Submissions will close on October 31, 2025 and reopen as soon as possible.

Both new and established writers are encouraged to submit. Our inaugural issue will be published in Winter 2025. We will accept submissions and read during the Spring and Fall seasons, with the goal of publishing Summer and Winter issues.

Our Guidelines are subject to change, so please review them carefully prior to submitting.


How to Submit

Please email your submission package to submissions@copytextmagazine.com.

In the subject line, please write the genre of submission and the title(s) of your work. For example:

  • POETRY SUBMISSION: Poetry Title(s)
  • FICTION SUBMISSION: Excerpt(s) from Title
  • CREATIVE NONFICTION SUBMISSION: Excerpt(s) from Title

Along with your submission package, please include a short cover letter in the body of the email, as well as a brief third-person bio (no more than 100 words). Feel free to include links to your social media pages. Please only submit once per reading period and only in one genre (poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction).

Submit your package in a single MS Word Document (we recommend you use our Submission Template, but it is not required). Other formats such as .pdf files will not be acceptable as we will be unable to extract the text easily for web development.

Submissions

For poetry, creative nonfiction (CNF), and fiction, we want to publish the following together:

  • A first or early draft of the work (called Early Draft)
  • A middle to late draft of the work (called Middle Draft)
  • The final and best version of the work (called Publication)

Please include exactly three versions of your piece. Clearly label them "Early Draft," "Middle Draft," and "Publication" next to their titles on the page.

When submitting, you will curate the three versions that our Editorial Team will consider. Your Early Draft might be the second version that you wrote, and your Middle Draft might be your seventh or thirteenth. We want to see authentic records of your writing process that show the meaningful artistic decisions that led you to the final version. As you select your versions, consider the story that your revisions tell.

The only requirement is that your Publication—your final version—must be considered final, so send us your best work! We want to publish process, not works-in-progress. We are looking not only for an interesting story of process and revision but also the very best craftsmanship we can find—send us work that plays with language, that chases possibility, that sparks discovery.

Any submission that includes more than three versions of the piece will not be accepted.

  • Poetry Submissions: For each reading period, your submission package may include two poems, three versions each. Please only submit work where all versions are less than 50 lines (or two pages). Shorter poems will be better fits. We are interested in formal revisions, such as changes to where a line is broken, overall length, stanzas, and indentation. We are also interested in prose and block poems.
    • We are able to recognize indentation, spaces, and line breaks. Please do not submit erasure poetry, visual poems, or poems with super elaborate spacing at this time. For line lengths in poetry, keep in mind that the standard web publication line length is 45-75 characters. Please do submit each version in the form you wrote it in, but note that poems with longer line lengths may have altered formats.

  • Prose Submissions: For each reading period, your submission package may include two excerpts of either fiction or creative nonfiction, three versions each, and each no more than 300 words. Please only submit work where all versions are under the word limitations. We suggest selecting only a paragraph or two. Flash fiction and CNF less than 300 words are also welcome; please just let us know that this is what you have submitted in your cover letter.

We happily consider simultaneous submissions. Please let us know in your cover letter and notify us immediately if it is accepted elsewhere.

We do love revision, but not after submission. Please only submit a finalized package of work.


Previously Published Work

We welcome writers to submit previously published work that meets all the above requirements and is properly cited. To do so, please follow the exact same guidelines as above, submitting your published version as “Publication.” In your cover letter, please include the following:

  • Author Rights: Confirm that you as the author currently have the rights to the work. Do not submit work that you do not have the rights to.
  • Statement/Proper Citation: Please explicitly state in your cover letter that the piece was previously published (e.g., "This poem, TITLE, originally appeared in PUBLICATION") and properly cite it by including a link to the publication and specific issue. If a link is not available, please include a picture or screenshot of the publication.

Previously published work will be equally considered alongside unpublished submissions for merit and best-fit. If accepted, you will receive a Reprint Rights Agreement for publication.


Topics and Themes

We're interested in work that:

  • Tells the story of survival, resistance, and healing
  • Imagines futures of care, justice, and liberation
  • Reckons with collective grief, action, and response
  • Explores the complex identities within and beyond the family system (childhood, parenthood, queer families and communities, estrangement, intergenerational exchange)
  • Remembers legacies and lineages
  • Centers indigenous knowledge, experiences, histories, and futures
  • Engages with desire, sex, sexuality, the erotic, and ritual
  • Honors all things: seeks to know the self
  • Examines our digital age and digs into our modern mythologies
  • Celebrates the natural world in its strangeness and beauty
  • Is beautiful, and offers comfort in times of grief

While these are suggestions of themes that we are interested in, we are open to any work that, through revision and experimentation, persists in telling a compelling story.


Artificial Intelligence

Our Editorial Team will never use AI to evaluate your writing or as a tool for feedback. We are absolutely committed to the idea that curating writing means offering a human reaction to works of art. It should go without saying, but transparency goes both ways!

As AI has become a tempting tool for writers to use to write or "clean up" their writing for them, the work of revision can feel like a radical political and ethical choice. That choice is what we are interested in. Do not submit work that has been touched or generated by AI, in part or in whole. We want to revel in your creative process and publish your decision to opt out of the madness.


Publication Rights

If published, Copytext will reserve First Electronic Rights, and all versions will be referred to collectively as “The Work.” Individual rights to The Work revert back to the author upon publication. None of the versions may be reprinted without attribution to Copytext. Your final version, the Publication, may be submitted to awards and anthologies.

The Early and Middle Drafts will be referred to as the “Process Drafts.” Copytext will maintain the right to publish these in the context of your final Publication, to keep them available on our website and in potential future print issues (with your collaboration), to use any excerpts in promotional materials or on social media, and in any educational forum, all within the context of your final Publication. Copytext also agrees that these drafts will not be submitted to awards, anthologies, or other publications as stand-alone works. Any future use of your Process Drafts will maintain their context as works-in-progress to demonstrate your revision process towards the final Publication.

By submitting your work, you affirm you are the sole author of your work. You may also republish on personal platforms.


Editorial Process

  • We will respectfully and thoroughly consider each and every submission we receive. We aim to respond within two to three months.
  • Our editorial process is to review work that is ready for publication. We will not be involved in the revision process.
  • If your work is accepted, we will request that you write a 200-word paragraph in response to some questions we will send you about your process. You may respond to the 1-2 questions that resonate with you the most. The Editors reserve the right to make minor tweaks and suggestions on this response.
  • Before publication, we will send you a link to a digital proof of your work, with a request that you confirm for accuracy.

Upon Publication

  • We will promote your work on our website and social medial platforms. We may nominate the final versions of previously unpublished work for major awards.
  • We are not yet able to pay our contributors, but are currently building our financial resources to do so as compensation is vital.
  • If you would like to update your name or pronouns after publication, please reach out to us and we would be happy to make these changes across all of our digital platforms.
  • We are working to develop a print edition of Copytext as soon as we can.