General Submission Guidelines

We look forward to reading your work!

updated March 22, 2016

We’re looking for well-crafted, compelling fiction written with a strong voice. Tell us a story.

We’re open to many genres including, but not limited to, literary, science fiction, speculative, gothic, historical, flash, and fairytales. We do not publish fanfiction or erotica.

We’re open for submissions at the beginning of each month:

December 1st — 7th
January 1st — 7th
February 1st — 7th
March 1st — 7th
April 1st — 7th…you get the picture!

Stories received outside of the submission period will not be read. We invite you to submit them again during the next open period.

We accept 12 to 14 stories per submission period. For your work to be considered, please follow these guidelines:

  1. Effective April 1st, we will be using Submittable to process all submissions. Please click here to view our call.
  2. Please send no more than 2 submissions per month.
  3. Our standard maximum length is 5,000 words (20 minute read). Exceptions will be made at the discretion of our editorial team.
  4. We do not accept previously published stories. This includes pieces published in traditional print journals, on your personal blog, or in any other online space.
  5. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Please notify us immediately if your piece has been accepted elsewhere.
  6. Your submission should be properly formatted and free of typos.
  7. Within 2 days, you will receive verification that we received your story. If you do not receive this, please feel free to contact us at the email address below.

Please allow 2 weeks for our response. Once your piece has been accepted, we will work with you to make sure it’s the best it can be before it appears in Made Up Words. No edits will be made without your participation and approval.

Accepted stories will be published during the month after they were received, i.e. stories accepted in December will appear in January and so on. We publish a new piece each Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.

If you have questions, please email [email protected]
To receive our monthly Letter, which includes submission announcements and other up-to-the-minute news, please click here.

Thank you for your interest!