Submission Guidelines

Submissions are OPEN.

The theme of Issue III is “LOVE”.

We accept all forms of prose, poetry, and art. Simultaneous submissions and previously published work are allowed. We encourage submissions from all ages! 

Each accepted piece will receive a payment of $10. Compensation for submissions is only possible with your support! Please DONATE to help sustain (and in the future, increase) our payments.

The theme of Issue III is love. Send us your heart-shaped chocolates, hidden love letters, tarnished wedding rings, decade-old family photos, broken promises, and never-sent apologies. Love exists in everything. So, send us love in every form you can find. We’re looking for insightful, distinctive work.

You can submit via Google Forms here. The form will prompt you to include a short (less than 300 words) bio, your piece(s), your name, email, and more. Before submitting, please read the guidelines below.

Prose - up to 5,000 words per piece, submit no more than three pieces 

We accept all kinds of fiction and nonfiction. We ask that all prose under 2,000 words be in a single document, in pdf, doc, or docx format. Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced is preferred, but not required. Place titles at the top of each piece. Please omit names (or any other identifying information) from the document. 

We discourage essays. Although, our blog, afrotivity, could be a suitable home for such writing. You can send pitches to our blog here. 

Poetry - no word or page limit, no more than four poems per submission

We ask that all poems are in a single document, in pdf, doc, or docx format. Place titles at the top of each piece. Please omit names (or any other identifying information) from the document. 

Art - no more than four pieces per submission

We accept all kinds of art, whether it's paintings, sculptures, digital art, mixed media, ceramics, photography, drawings, etc. We ask that each submission be in png or jpeg format. Include the title of your artwork in the submission form. 

IMPORTANT:

Please understand that Afro Literary Magazine is a space created specifically for Black creatives. See our About page, and the first question in our FAQs page. For this reason, we will only consider submissions from Black creatives for publication.

After reading the submission guidelines, submit using the button below.

If accepted, you agree to grant Afro first North American serial and electronic rights (if not previously published). After publication, all rights return back to the creator. If submitting previously published work (as permissible by the original publication), please let us know in your submission form!