Deadline: 1 April 2011
Submit to Witness
Witness is published three times a year, in January, May, and September. Unsolicited work is welcome between September 1 and April 1. We accept original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
We prefer work that is contemporary in its setting, outward-looking in its perspective, and mindful of the modern writer's role as witness to his or her times. We also enjoy material that ventures into international terrain.
Our publication schedule and guidelines have changed. Please carefully review the information below before submitting.
Calls for Submissions
Special Issue: Disaster (Volume XXV, Number 1 — 2012)
The theme for our 2012 special issue is disaster. We invite work that addresses any facet of the subject—whether natural, financial, personal, environmental, governmental, literary, or otherwise—or that is calamitous in its construction.
If you are submitting work to be considered for the special issue, please select "[genre] special issue" in the genre menu on our submission form.
General Issues (Volume XXIV, Numbers 2 and 3 — 2011)
Throughout our reading period, we also welcome general submissions. General work will be published in our new online issues, the first of which will appear in May 2011. We make no distinction between the quality of the work we select for print and online publication. Each online issue contains original, online-only content, and all of the work we publish online is free to readers.
When submitting work to be considered for the general issues, please select "[genre] general" in the genre menu on our submission form.
A note about photography
While we do not accept photography submissions at our web site, we are always interested in hearing, via e-mail, from photojournalists who feel their work would be a good fit for Witness. Photography suggested for consideration in the special print issue should correspond to the issue's theme.
General guidelines
• Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome between September 1 and April 1.
• We accept simultaneous submissions provided you promptly withdraw your work if it is accepted elsewhere. If you need to withdraw a single poem in a set, please withdraw your entire submission and submit a new set. Although this may push our response time forward from the date of your original submission, it allows for more efficient staff management of your work.
• Our reporting time is generally eight to twelve weeks, although we sometimes take longer over the winter holidays and at the conclusion of the spring semester. After twelve weeks, you are welcome to contact us by e-mail about the status of your submission.
• We do not accept previously published work. This includes material that has appeared online in any form or format, including personal blogs.
• We only accept work through our online submission manager. Work that arrives by post or e-mail will be returned unread.
• Please limit your submission to one story, one essay, or five poems at a time. We do not have a word limit.
• Witness pays $25 for every 1,500 words of prose and $25 per poem, for both print and online work.
How to submit online
• All files must be saved in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf).
• As noted above, you may only submit one story, one essay, or five poems at a time. Poems should be sent in a single document file, with the individual poems separated by page breaks.
• Work should be formatted on letter-sized paper, double-spaced, and set in a standard (Times, Helvetica, Arial) 12-point typeface.
• Your contact information, including an e-mail address, should appear on the first page of the submission.
• Cover letter information can be entered in the “comments” box of the online submission form.
Submit here.
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