Submission Guidelines
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR ☞
Moonday Mag is a speculative magazine that welcomes all writers and artists, both established and emerging, and especially seeks to uplift marginalized voices. We're interested in things that are surreal, wondrous, macabre, fantastic, curious, strange, otherworldly, moody, chilling, and smart. Please send along your short stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and visual art that feels like a dream—something that will keep us up at night, in the best way possible. We want to feel grounded in your radical magic. We want to fall into your world and never find our way back out.
We are (usually) not looking for: high fantasy, soft sci-fi, rhyme schemes, or work intended for children. We are NEVER looking for: gratuitous violence, sexism, racism, or other types of discrimination against a particular group; the exoticization or fetishization of a particular group; Aryanism poorly disguised as futurism; nationalism poorly disguised as utopianism; or plagiarized, freebooted, or AI-assisted work.
In addition to general submissions, these are our current themed calls:
– ghost stories (visual art)
– Halloween (poetry & visual art)
– ritual (visual art)
Still not sure if your work is a good fit? Check out this interview with the editor for some more insight.
READING PERIOD ☞
Submissions will be considered for all future issues of the magazine, no matter when submitted.
– fiction submissions: accepted January 1st - June 30th– non-fiction, poetry, and art: accepted 24/7/365
SUBMISSION FEES & COMPENSATION ☞
We know how it feels to want your art to be seen, and hosted in a safe space for your audience. Because of this, submission is free! If you'd like to help keep the lights on around here, physical magazine sales and merch sales go directly toward printing costs, site maintenance, and future grants for you.
Moonday Mag is a living room operation being run by a small army of volunteer fabulists. So at this time, we cannot offer compensation to our artists, but we do offer a lifelong home for your piece, as well as the opportunity to be nominated for a Pushcart Prize or Best of the Net!
HOW TO SUBMIT ☞
Email: moondaymag@gmail.com with subject line: "[fiction/nonfiction/poetry/art] submission"
In the body of your email:
– full name (or pen name)
– under 100 word bio
– links you would like shared if accepted (website, Instagram, email etc)
– if your submission is a reprint, where was it first published?
– if your submission is art: the titles, mediums, sizes, and years of your pieces
– if your submission is prose: a tagline or very short synopsis to hook readers
ATTACH YOUR work:
– file name: "LastName_FirstName_Title"
– prose: 1 piece under 4,000 words in standard manuscript formatting
– poetry: up to 5 poems not exceeding 10 pages collectively
– art: up to 10 images, 300 DPI preferred
All written work should be sent in an editable file (.doc .docx .rtf etc). We may lightly copyedit, but will never interfere with your stylistic choices.
If you would like feedback, please request it in your email and we are happy to provide the clear and concise thoughts of our readers!
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS & REPRINTS ☞
We welcome simultaneous submissions and previously published work, but please be diligent in following the reprint rules of other publications. If you would like to withdraw a piece of, or your entire, submission from our potentials pool, please let us know ASAP by replying to your original submission email.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT ☞
By letting us support you, you're supporting us! It's like we're in a relationship now. So while you're waiting for our second date, track your submission. Moonday Mag is proudly listed on Duotrope, Chill Subs, and The Submission Grinder.
Just can't wait? We want to hear from you too, but please only submit 1x per 6 months. We aim to respond within 90 days. If you haven't heard from us in 6 months, chances are we love your work but haven't had the right issue to showcase it yet—feel free to follow up!
If your work is accepted, Moonday Mag receives first serial rights, first electronic rights or one-time rights for reprints, and non-exclusive electronic archive rights. You consent to us promoting your work on social media, hosting it online, and publishing it in the physical magazine. After publication, all rights revert back to the author. If reprinted, please acknowledge Moonday Mag as the first place of publication. (By submitting to Moonday Mag, you accept these terms.)