Our democratic editorial policy takes time, so forgive us if we take a bit to get back to you, and rest assured that your work gets the undivided attention of several members of our editorial board. Please also know that we never take a reading hiatus and we sincerely appreciate your submissions.
Guidelines for Submission
Painted Bride Quarterly accepts:
- Poetry: up to 3 poems per submission
- Flash fiction: up to 1,000 words, spread between (at max.) 3 pieces
- Fiction: 1 submission of up to 5,000 words
- Prose: 1 submission of up to 3,000 words for essays and reviews, or up to 5,000 words for all other creative non-fiction, including memoir
Please include all poems or work in a single document. Do not include any personal information on the document with your submission. We get all that we need within Submittable.
We only accept previously unpublished work. We are fine with simultaneous submissions; please just be sure to tell us right away if part or all of your submission is accepted elsewhere!
We also think most writers understand that we’re not interested in work generated by ChatGPT or other AI language models. We want your fully human creation.
To get a feel for the kind of work we like, just read through current issues or check out our podcast! We regularly find new authors to feature on the podcast from the current pool of submissions. If your work is strong and will generate discussion, we might choose it! If that happens, we’ll reach out to you directly to ask if you’d be open to us discussing and voting on your work on the podcast.
If at any time you wish to check on the status of your submission please contact us through Submittable. If you have a submission with multiple pieces in front of us (e.g. three poems), and one or two are accepted elsewhere, please just send us a message using Submittable. DO NOT WITHDRAW the entire submission if there remains one or more pieces for us to still consider. Only use the WITHDRAW feature if you need to remove your entire submission from our consideration. Again, contacting us through the Message feature on Submittable is the only way we can ensure that we will see your message in a timely manner.
Our average reading times:
Poetry - 2 to 5 months from submission to having a decision
Prose/Fiction - 3 to 7 months from submission to having a decision
We're re-opening for flash fiction submissions. This category is for up to 1,000 words total spread between up to 3 pieces maximum. (Please don't submit longer short stories in this category.)
For example, you could submit 3 flash pieces, where the 1st piece is 500 words, the 2nd piece is 200 words, and the 3rd piece not more than 300 words. Any combo up to 1,000 words across a maximum of 3 pieces.
Get your well crafted, head spinning work in front of our readers for possible inclusion in Issue 114 or beyond. Work that really catches our attention may even be considered for a dedicated discussion on our podcast. (Listen to previous episodes or read previous issues to get a feel for what we like!)
NOTE: We may close before the published deadline for this category when we hit an internal reading cap. This keeps us responsive.
We're re-opening for fiction submissions. This category is for a SINGLE short story of up to 5,000 words. Please DO NOT share flash fiction here.
Get your stunning, polished work in front of our readers for possible inclusion in Issue 114 or beyond. Work that really catches our attention may even be considered for a dedicated discussion on our podcast. (Listen to previous episodes or read previous issues to get a feel for what we like!)
NOTE: We may close before the published deadline for this category when we hit an internal reading cap. This keeps us responsive.