Miracle Monocle is now open for submissions. We will close on August 31st or whenever 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 $2 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 refrain from submitting more than once in one submission cycle. We also ask that writers submit only original, unpublished work.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Miracle Monocle accepts simultaneous submissions, but we request that submissions accepted elsewhere are withdrawn as soon as possible. We publish only previously unpublished work.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.
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.
The prize includes publication in an upcoming issue of Miracle Monocle and a $200 award. 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.
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 fiction, please submit one piece of 1,000-10,000 words. We accommodate traditional realism and experiment alike. Please do not submit excerpts of novels unless the piece can stand alone as a story.
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 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.