GENERAL SUBMISSIONS
General Submission Notes
Poetry, fiction, nonfiction and reviews are accepted through Submittable only. Please send no more than five poems, two short-shorts, one story, or one essay per submission. For reviews, we accept pitches or completed pieces; see guidelines below.
You can find more information about what our genre editors would like to read under Submission Calls below.
General submissions open on September 10 and close on November 15.
Our annual prose and poetry contests run each spring.
We aim to respond to submissions within four months, but sometimes things take longer than we’d like. Please do not query us on the status of your submission until six months have elapsed.
Cost of Submission
General submissions require a submission fee of $3.00 per submission to help pay for online submission services. Submissions in more than one genre should be submitted separately and require separate submission fees.
If our fee presents financial hardship, please contact us at fugue@uidaho.edu so that we can offer you a fee-free submission option.
Simultaneous Submissions
We consider simultaneous submissions (submissions sent concurrently to another journal or journals) as long as you let us know in the cover letter that this is the case and notify us immediately if a piece has been accepted elsewhere.
SUBMISSION CALLS
Fiction
Send us your stories with teeth. The stories that contort the world into unusual shapes and continue to rearrange us even after they are finished. We want stories that are curious about the world, themselves, and their audience. We are particularly interested in stories that are invested in environments and climates, real or imagined.
We remain committed to amplifying voices from underrepresented communities. Please do not submit pieces that exceed 3,000 words, and attach your story as a .pdf, .doc or .docx file. This edition of Fugue will prioritize shorter works as they are easier to publish. If your submission is 1,000 words or less, please submit it to our call for flash prose.
Nonfiction
We're here for literary nonfiction broadly conceived — from personal essays to hybrid works to criticism or theory (or some combination thereof!) — that is both grounded and imaginative. We’re looking for prose that is playful, but still feels important, vital, and engaging.
In order for our readers and editors to give your work the attention it deserves, we ask that you only submit pieces 5,000 words or less. Please keep in mind that longer pieces are only eligible for online publication. If your submission is 1,000 words or less, please submit it to our call for flash prose.
We eagerly welcome submissions from writers of all backgrounds, and we hope to include both established and new voices in our pages. We can't wait to read your work. Please attach your work as a .pdf, .doc, or .docx file.
Poetry
We are looking for poems with full, dense lines that avoid filler at all costs, unless the logic of the voice calls for it.
Send us poems confident in their own idioms and in the unique voice that drives them, work that challenges the reader — poems with a voice we’ve never heard (but feel like we know), poems with intellectual power, poems with mystery. Here’s a quick definition of how we see voice: a usage of idiom, a flavor of thinking, a stylistic mode, a texturing of images, and an overall inner logic that is in harmony with itself and occupies a unique way of seeing.
Do not send anything written by AI, cleaned up by AI, or anything where AI was used in its creation.
We will be thrilled with a good poem no matter what length it is, so don't be afraid of submitting a short poem.
Do not be afraid to mix high and low language, to involve the beautiful and the grotesque in your poems, to work in the modes of the elevated and the everyday. Help us touch the stars — either bring them down or lift us up.
Please send up to three poems with a maximum submission length of 10 pages. Send all poems in one document. Please attach your work as a .pdf, .doc, or .docx file.
Art and Hybrid Forms
Send us your art and genre-bending work. We want your text-images, sound pieces, paintings, photographs, collages, videos, screenprints, sculptures, textiles, drawings, and any writing that crosses boundaries and forms.
Submit up to five pieces in a single document as a .pdf, .doc or .docx, .jpg, .png, .mp3, or .mp4 file. If we accept a piece for publication, we will communicate with you about how we can best showcase it. Publication is contingent on sending a high-quality/high-resolution version of the work. If you’re sending us multiple pieces, please indicate whether those stand alone or are part of a series.
Please also include a bio and a brief artist statement that describes your project and contextualizes your art practice.
Flash Prose
This submission period, we are officially opening our first specific call for flash prose! Right out of the gate, we are looking to publish flash that doesn’t linger, or if it does… it yearns. We are looking for maximalist prose in minimal space. Send us something arresting and gut-punching – from the overly descriptive and sentimental to the capital G Grotesque. We are seeking stories and essays with energetic, voice-driven prose that leaves a metallic taste in the mouth. Sparse and impressionist vignettes are also encouraged. We believe flash is most successful when it speaks for itself.
Per usual flash tradition, for fiction or nonfiction, works more than 1,000 words will not be considered. Submit up to TWO flash pieces per packet, and if they differ in genre please indicate that in your cover letter. Flash will take precedence in this year’s print issue, Fugue 67. Send all work in one document as a .docx or .pdf.
Reviews and Interviews
We are seeking pieces by writers who engage with books and their authors on both a critical and a personal level. We aim to publish reviews and interviews that would have trouble finding a home elsewhere — reviews that push the boundaries of the criticism genre (think personal narrative, think fabulism, think essays in conversation with multiple texts, think of lit crit that reaches out into discussion of music and movies and games and art), and interviews that make neighbors of the interviewer, author, and reader (think conversations that expand beyond the text, think embodied description and ephemera that brings us into the room, think questions and answers that spiral into diatribes, arguments, and bits.)
Fugue is interested in thoughtful and artful explorations of what you’re reading and who you’re talking to. We’re as interested in hidden gems as we are in new releases. We have a special magnetism toward reviews of small press books, works that defy genre categorization, and authors who create something rare in a rapidly homogenizing publishing landscape. We’re especially looking for long takes (while we don’t have a word count in mind, we hope to have plenty of time to be immersed in your perspective and conversation). Make us think with our heads, our hearts, our hands. And most of all, remind us why we love the written word.
While we accept simultaneous submissions, please do us the courtesy of notifying us immediately when a work is accepted elsewhere.
In your submission, please include a brief bio. Also include the full title, author, publisher, and publication year of the book(s) you are reviewing or discussing.
Complete review and interview submission are accepted through Submittable only. We also accept pitches for reviews and interviews via fuguereviews@gmail.com.
Looking for information about our annual contest?