Submit to The Drinking Gourd

Photo by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash

The Drinking Gourd (TDG) publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by Black Muslim writers only. We welcome submissions from outside of the United States.

We are open to and encourage experimentation with the above forms. Although we have a particular fondness for Afrofuturism and speculative works, we accept work across all genres.

How To Submit

We are not accepting poetry submissions at this time.

All submissions must be sent to drinkinggourdmag@gmail.com.

In the subject line, specify which section you are submitting, i.e.; [FICTION] XXXX.

1. Include a brief cover letter within the body of the email (example can be found here) along with a 50-word biography.
2. All work should be sent as an attachment, preferably DOCX. Do not send work as PDFs.

We accept creative nonfiction anywhere between 800 and 6,000 words. Fiction is accepted up to 6,000 words. Submit one essay or story at a time. You may include up to three poems in a single submission.

Poets: Please note that Medium’s formatting is limited. We don’t have much flexibility in playing with line breaks, spacing, and etc. We cannot format poems beyond basic stanzas.

Payment

The Drinking Gourd pays all contributors a $75 flat rate by PayPal or Venmo. If the previous two are unavailable, we will use Wise or similar wire transfer system. We are unable to mail payment.

We send payment within 72 hours of receiving a signed contract. You do not wait until your publishing date to be paid.

Additional Rules

• We welcome simultaneous submissions, but please let us know immediately if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.
• No multiple submissions. Wait for a response to your submission before sending us any new material.
• We do not accept work that has been previously published elsewhere. That includes in other literary magazines, your personal social media, and etc.
• Please allow at least two weeks for response time. As we are a volunteer-led magazine operating under capitalism, many of us are forced to wear multiple hats to simply make a living. All that is to say, offer us grace when it comes to responding to submissions.
• In a commitment to language justice, TDG welcomes pieces that aren’t completely in English, and encourage folks to express their ideas in the mediums and dialects that feel comfortable to them.

TDG is a volunteer-led project without any official funding. If you’d like to support us in paying Black Muslim writers, donate to our PayPal.