318 Journal accepts submissions from April 15th through November 15th from undergraduate writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrid texts, digital literature, and chapbooks for publication in the spring of the following year. Submissions are welcome from both national and international undergraduate creative writers.
Please note: submissions are read during the fall semester.
General submission guidelines:
- Work submitted must be from undergraduate writers.
- Cover letter in the body of your email. In your cover letter please include: your full name, pronouns, your college and course of study, a bio photo, and a brief third person bio of no more than 100 words.
- Work must be original and previously unpublished.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please notify us immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere.
- Submissions should be in a single Microsoft Word file (if submission contains images, put those in the body of the Word doc and we will request high resolution files upon acceptance). Note: if your work requires the preservation of special formatting, you can submit it as a PDF file.
- Include the titles of the pieces submitted.
- Title the filename of submission as follows: [Category]-[Last name]-[Title] (example: Poetry-Smith-My Poem.doc)
- By submitting your original work to 318 Journal you grant 318 Journal first serial rights and nonexclusive, ongoing electronic rights. Serial rights revert to author upon publication.
- As this is a student-run journal, we unfortunately cannot offer payment to our writers at this time.
- 318 Journal follows CSUSM Civility Campaign’s pledge: “As a member of the CSUSM community, I will conduct myself with self-reflection, care, respect, and empathy while acknowledging the culture and humanity of others.” As such, the work you submit must reflect the concerns of the pledge.
Additional submission guidelines for each genre are detailed below.
Poetry submissions:
- Send poetry submissions to: poetry [at] 318journal [dot] com
(be sure to replace “[at]” with the “@” symbol and “[dot]” with a “.” when using this email address) - Send no more than 3–5 poems, one poem per page.
Fiction submissions:
- Send fiction submissions to: fiction [at] 318journal [dot] com
(be sure to replace “[at]” with the “@” symbol and “[dot]” with a “.” when using this email address) - Send up to 3 pieces of short, flash, or micro fiction.
Hybrid Texts:
Use this category for works that defy, blend, or blur the boundaries between genres. Genres that your submission might blend include, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, short stories, artwork, or photographs. Need some inspiration? We are inspired by authors such as Douglas Kearney, Tom Phillips, and Amanda Earl.
- Send hybrid text submissions to: hybrid [at] 318journal [dot] com
(be sure to replace “[at]” with the “@” symbol and “[dot]” with a “.” when using this email address) - For textual submissions, send no more than 2 pieces of around 500 words each.
- For artwork or photographs, send up to 2 pieces as JPEG files. We encourage visual works but request some sort of textual element be incorporated into the piece.
Digital Literature:
We are looking for digital literature, including Twine pieces, visual poetry, virtual art and more.
- Send digital literature submissions to: digital-lit [at] 318journal [dot] com
(be sure to replace “[at]” with the “@” symbol and “[dot]” with a “.” when using this email address) - Twine submissions should be at least 10 Twine pages in length
- Video submissions should be at least 30 seconds
- For visual poetry and virtual art, send up to 5 pieces as JPEG files
Creative Nonfiction:
- Send creative nonfiction submissions to: cnf [at] 318journal [dot] com
- (be sure to replace “[at]” with the “@” symbol and “[dot]” with a “.” when using this email address)
- Send up to 3 pieces of previously unpublished work.
- Creative Flash Nonfiction: No more than 1,000 words.
- Longer Creative Nonfiction: No more than 3,000 words.
- Authors submitting multiple pieces should send each piece as a separate file.
Chapbooks/Zines:
Voices Unheard is thrilled to announce that we are open for submissions for first-time writers to be a part of our inspiring Zine project of the 2023 Fall Edition. We are accepting writing in the form of creative nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry. For our participating authors, the word limit should not exceed 360 words. Authors may submit no more than three pieces of prose up to 360 words each, or up to four poems. The deadline to submit work is November 15.
- Send zine submissions to: chapbooks [at] 318journal [dot] com
(be sure to replace “[at]” with the “@” symbol and “[dot]” with a “.” when using this email address)