Miracle Monocle will open for submissions 8/16/23 and will remain open until we reach our submission cap.
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 no fee for submission. We ask that writers refrain from submitting more than once in one submission cycle. We also ask that writers submit only original, unpublished work. 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 welcomes submissions to its Ambitious Student Writing Competition in the Spring. The intent of this award series is to celebrate the talents of writers beginning their careers with panache and verve. All individuals currently enrolled as students (high school, undergraduate, or graduate) are eligible to enter; all genres of literary writing are welcome. The prize includes publication in an upcoming issue of Miracle Monocle and award of $200. 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Miracle Monocle accepts simultaneous submissions, but we request that submissions accepted elsewhere are withdrawn as soon as possible. We publish only previously unpublished work.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.
For two-dimensional art or photography, 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.
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 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.
Miracle Monocle welcomes submissions for its award for Innovative Writing. The intent of this award series is to celebrate the work of writers pushing beyond the realm of the expected, refreshing the reader's sense of genre expectations.
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. All submissions to the competition will be considered for publication in the journal. We are charging a small submission fee to cover the cost of adjudicating the prize.
Please remove any identifying information from your manuscript and refrain from identifying yourself in your file name or title. Cover letters will remain hidden until after the competition has been adjudicated.