Miracle Monocle is now open for submissions across all categories. We will close when we reach our submission caps.
To learn more about our editorial process and practices, please visit our Editorial Code of Conduct.
The journal is university-affiliated, so our publication cycles are determined by the academic calendar. We begin reading for our Fall issue in August and publish in December; we begin reading for our Spring issue in January and publish in May. We will not hold submissions for more than one semester.
General Guidelines:
There is a $3 fee for all regular submissions. The purpose of this fee is to pay for the use of our submission management system. We ask that writers submit only original, unpublished work. Any use of AI must be explicitly noted in a cover letter. We do not currently pay contributors, but we do offer exceptional support to our writers in the form of social media coverage, reviews of new books, award nominations, and prize monies.
Miracle Monocle welcomes submissions to its Award for Innovative Writing in the Fall. The intent of this award series is to celebrate literary experiment. This year the prize includes an enhanced package of honors including: publication of the winning piece in an upcoming issue of Miracle Monocle, an official award letter, an audio recording of the piece and/or an interview feature to run concurrently with the winning piece in the journal, and a $200 prize.
Miracle Monocle welcome submissions to our Award for Young Black American Writers in the Spring. The intent of this award series is to celebrate the literary excellence of writers in an historically under-represented category and includes the publication of the winning piece in an upcoming issue of the journal, an award letter, and a $200 prize. All entries to the competition will be considered for publication in the journal.
Miracle Monocle publishes the results of the annual Calvino Prize, an award recognizing outstanding fiction in the fabulist mode, in its Spring issues. This award is facilitated by the University of Louisville and comes with a $2000 cash prize. To enter to win this competition, please follow the submission guidelines published here.
Miracle Monocle accepts simultaneous submissions, but we request that submissions accepted elsewhere are withdrawn as soon as possible. We publish only previously unpublished work. We will make every effort to respond quickly and respectfully to your work. If you suspect we have overlooked or misplaced your submission, please contact us here: miraclemonocle@gmail.com. Please visit our site to review our archives before submitting.
The editorial staff of Miracle Monocle, the award-winning online literary journal housed at the University of Louisville, is pleased to announce an open call for submissions to the fifth installment of its micro-anthology series. A LITTLE SUGAR IN THE TANK asks contributors to consider what it means to live as a Queer person in the South. What are the frictions of existing in a (historically) conservative region while not conforming to the expectations of that conservatism? What are the benefits? We encourage contributors to think about this from as many different angles as they can: from humorous to tragic, from bored to beautiful, from ugly to inspired. Moments of connection, disconnection, dissonance, and resonance are all welcome.
This installment in our print series will feature poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrid, graphic art, visual art, and everything print-produceable in-between. The anthology will be published in conjunction with a future digital issue of Miracle Monocle and will represent our ongoing dedication to supporting student-driven publishing innovation.
Please submit no more than three poems, pieces of flash, or short hybrid works; no more than three images in JPEG or TIFF format; and no more than one longer work of fiction or literary nonfiction. If you are submitting multiple short pieces, please include them in the same file. There is no fee for submission and we will remain open for entry until we reach our quota or until 2/28/2025. BIPOC contributors are especially encouraged to submit. We look forward to reading your work.
Miracle Monocle is pleased to announce the The Miracle Monocle Award for Young Black Writers. The winner of the prize will receive a $200 award, publication in the journal, and a letterpress broadside of the winning work, as designed by Hot Brown Press. We welcome work in the following categories: poetry, prose, and experimental and hybrid literature. Writers must be 25 years old or younger and identify as a Black American writer. We seek only original work that has not been published elsewhere. There is no fee for entry. We ask that writers refrain from sending us more than one submission during this editorial cycle and follow our guidelines carefully. Miracle Monocle accepts simultaneous submissions, but we request that submissions accepted elsewhere are withdrawn as soon as possible. We will make every effort to respond quickly and respectfully to your work. If you suspect we have overlooked or misplaced your submission, please contact us here: miraclemonocle@gmail.com.
For creative nonfiction, please submit one piece of 500-10,000 words. We're looking for essays with aspects of personal narrative, reporting, and the lyric; we're also interested in flash. Please do not send excerpts of longer works unless the piece can stand alone.
For poetry, please submit no more than three pieces. (We'd prefer if you submitted multiple pieces within one document instead of creating multiple entries.) We like unique voices that encourage us to reevaluate ourselves and the world around us, poetry that makes the familiar seem unfamiliar. We appreciate work that takes risks and offers unexpected surprises.
For the experimental and not-easily-defined, please submit no more than three pieces. (We'd prefer if you submitted multiple pieces within one document instead of creating multiple entries.) We’re interested in flash, microfictions, nano fictions, and the like. We’re also fans of hybrid and collaborative work. In other words, we like to play host to writers who straddle the lines between genres. Length is negotiable, though flash tends to turn into something else when it exceeds 1500 words. Send your genre Frankensteins our way; they’ll find a safe home here.
For two-dimensional art, please submit no more than 3 pieces. We are especially fond of work that incorporates text, but this is more of a preference than a demand. We are open to a wide range of approaches, but tend to favor uniqueness and oddity over a strict fidelity to realistic representation. Images should be at least 300 dpi, submitted in JPG or TIFF format. RGB or CMYK please.