Submission Guidelines
for Prism & Pen
WHO WE ARE
Prism & Pen seeks to amplify LGBTQ voices through the art of storytelling. We welcome new and established writers. Our current roster covers a wide range of author experience, from first-time contributors to seasoned craftspeople. We consider and publish writers from all backgrounds, both LGBTQ people and allies.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Prism & Pen seeks to amplify artistic excellence. At a minimum, submissions should be grammatically correct, free of misspellings and typos, and look generally professional. They should possess a certain indefinable essence that reaches for people’s hearts and minds.
- Short Fiction: Short stories exploring LGBTQ lives or issues should be engaging, compelling, and, except in rare circumstances, under 2,000 words.
- Serialized Fiction: We accept novels and novellas as serialized fiction so long as the author commits to publishing the entire work one chapter at a time, at least once per week. Aspiring novelists may find this process useful for developing an audience and engaging beta readers. Our editors can help you with tips on how to get the most out of your experience.
- Creative Nonfiction: Short works under 2,000 words should illuminate the LGBTQ experience by sharing lives and lived truths or by commenting on current events through storytelling. We are not looking for pure journalism or advocacy in exposition form, but we might be able to help you find a good home for such pieces. We recognize lines between different forms of writing are vague. We will err in favor of accepting your work. As with fiction, the 2,000 word limit is negotiable under exceptional circumstances.
- Poetry: See poetry-specific guidelines below.
WHAT WE PUBLISH
- We may accept work that has been published outside of Medium (e.g., blog, magazine, thesis). This will be at the discretion of the editors.
- We do not, as per Medium rules, accept work that is currently appearing in another Medium publication. Also per Medium rules, we do not accept work that has previously appeared in another Medium publication, unless you have edited the piece to substantially improve it.
- At this time, we are accepting only unpublished drafts.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
- If you are a prospective writer for Prism & Pen, please send an email with the subject line “FIRST SUBMISSION” to prismnpen@gmail.com. Include a link to your Medium draft. After review from our editorial team, we will let you know the status of your submission within 10 days. If you have not received a response by then, feel free to contact us to ask about the status.
- If you are already a Prism & Pen writer, please submit your draft as usual. (Don’t know how? See below.) We will normally publish within 7 to 10 days, or send you an email or draft note letting you know our reasons for refusal and any suggestions for improvement. Depending on the volume of publishing at the time you submit, it may sometimes take longer for your piece to appear. If you have not heard from us within 14 days, feel free to email prismnpen@gmail.com.
- If we accept your piece, we may work with you on edits to make sure it’s the best it can be before it appears in Prism & Pen. We will not publish any piece we have edited unless you agree to the edits.
Provided the above guidelines are followed, we read, consider, and respond to every submission sent to us.
IMAGES
As per Medium curation guidelines, you must include at least one hi-res image relevant to your content. Most pieces include an image directly below the title and subtitle, though we may entertain exceptions for artistic reasons. Your main image must be a minimum of 1200 pixels wide, though you may choose to use smaller pieces throughout your story as illustrations.
If you are having trouble finding an image that meets the sizing requirements, Unsplash has a great selection of royalty free images, all of which are large scale. Some of our editors have a great deal of experience sourcing images and may be able to help you.
Image attribution: After adding an image to your piece, use the text area underneath the image to provide a link to the image author and source. For example — Image Source: Josh Hild / Unsplash.com
TAGGING
One of the five tags must be dedicated for use by Prism & Pen. Site navigation is controlled using this tag. They include: Fiction, Poetry, Creative Non Fiction and Series (for chapter lists only).
When tagging your piece, you should use all five tags. The editor working with your piece can help you choose other good tags to maximize exposure.
Tags to consider: LGBTQ, Transgender, Equality, Love, Family, Activism, Gender, Feminism, Social Justice. Other tags may apply.
WHAT WE ASK OF YOU
If you become a writer for Prism & Pen, we ask that you be generous in support of the publication and your fellow writers by:
- Subscribing to the Prism & Pen publication to receive updates and notifications.
- Being generous with claps, responses and highlights of other writers’ works. We are not asking you to blindly recommend everything we publish. We are asking you to be mindfully generous of work written by your peers.
- Engaging with other writers and encouraging them. Creating community is a key goal of this publication and our community thrives on active engagement.
- Following us on social media. If you have a Twitter and/or Facebook account please follow us: Twitter: @prismnpen / Facebook: Prism & Pen.
POETRY-SPECIFIC GUIDELINES
New to Poetry?: Our poetry editor, Esther Spurrill-Jones, published a very helpful serial on how to write poetry here: Writing Poetry: All About Poetry
Content: Poetry is a wide-open space, but it maintains its poetic roots in rhythm, rhyme, playful, inventive, and concentrated language, and evocative imagery. Well-constructed poetry reveals emotional depth. Poetry shows your reader something without telling them directly. It uses effective imagery without becoming cliché or melodramatic. Choose the right words. Strive to say more with less. Be magical and inventive. Write from your heart and soul.
Form or Free Verse: Poetry can be in a form or free verse. Use modern language. Don’t rhyme merely for the sake of rhyming. Concentrate more on rhythm and being inventive and avoiding poetic clichés.
Formatting: Poems must be formatted using single-spaced lines. To get a single-spaced line instead of a double-spaced one in a Medium story, hold the <Shift> key at the same time as you hit the <Enter or Return> key.
Alternatively, if you are copying and pasting a poem into the Medium editor, simply right click and select “Paste as plain text” or “Paste without formatting.”
HOW TO SUBMIT A MEDIUM DRAFT TO PRISM & PEN (ONCE YOU ARE A WRITER FOR THE PUBLICATION)
o Open the draft story you want to submit.
o Click the “…” button in the top-right corner of the page to open story settings.
o Select “Add to Publication” from the story settings and select Prism & Pen from the dropdown list.
o Hit the “Ready to Submit” button.
