How To submit
You know the drill. Read our issues to see if we’re a good home for your work. Get the full scoop before you submit! 👇🏾 Then hit up our Submittable. All submissions are currently being considered for our monthly online issues. In an effort to promote Black voices, Split Lip Magazine is opening free submissions for Black writers in all genres.
Payment 💸
We pay (via PayPal) $75 per author for poems, memoirs, flash, fiction, and art, $50 for interviews/reviews, and $25 for mini-reviews for our web issues.
As long as we’ve got money, we’re committed to paying people for their work.
When to Submit
Free Submissions
January, March, May, August, September, November
We recommend submitting early in free subs months! Sometimes we have to shut free subs early due to a rad but also overwhelming response. (A peek behind the curtain: our free sub cap with Submittable maxes out. 😭)
Tip Jar Submissions
February, April, June, October, and the first half of December
We don’t accept submissions in July or from December 15–31.
If the fees are a burden, please reach out to us! We can’t always help out, but we like to try when we can.
Expedited Submissions
For $5 we’ll make sure we get back to you in 2 weeks. Expedited submissions don’t guarantee acceptance. Sometimes we close Expedited Review in one or more genres to catch up on submissions. If you don’t see it listed as a submissions category on our Submittable page, it means it’s temporarily closed.
Ground Rules
What’s a magazine without exclusive content? We want to see fresh work that hasn’t been published anywhere before (including your personal blog or website). First-time electronic publication rights are really all we ask for.
One submission per writer at a time, please. That means if you submit a poem, you can’t also submit flash, etc. You get the picture.
We accept simultaneous submissions. Yay! But please withdraw your piece immediately if it’s accepted elsewhere.
Content warnings: If your work deals with sensitive or triggering topics, please identify/note them in your cover letter.
If you used AI to write/create your piece, you must disclose this fact in your cover letter.
We don’t accept emailed submissions. You gotta use our Submittable. The exception to the rule is Interviews/Reviews—scroll down for more info.
If you have some edits to make after you’ve submitted: withdraw your submission, update it, and re-submit! We know it’s a headache, but we’re a small, all-volunteer team. We only have so many heads to hold everyone else’s aches. So be a pal and do a little of the legwork for us! Any emails asking us to correct something in a submission will, as much as it pains us to say it, be ignored!
It’ll take us up to 20 weeks to let you know if you’re in or not—we’re a small, all-volunteer staff.
If you receive a rejection, please wait at least a month before submitting again: we love you, but a mag’s gotta breathe, you know?
Hot Tips
Double space your work. Some of our staff needs it for readability! Single-spaced poetry is okay, though.
We vastly prefer .doc and .docx files, although a PDF is okay in a pinch.
Don’t send us stuff that promotes bigotry and violence. 🙅🏽
What We’re Looking For
Memoir
< 2000 words
Give us the dirty lowdown. We love memoir that shines a new light on the human condition. There are no limitations on subject matter. Maximum 2,000 words.
Flash
< 1000 words
Please send your unpublished short, shorter, shortest fiction under 1,000 words.
Poetry
Just your very best
Send us one (yes, just one) unpublished poem. Please do not send us more than one poem, fam!
Fiction
1000–3000 words
Send us your best unpublished literary, mainstream, or experimental writing between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Profanity, sex and such are permitted but we will not publish anything tickling the boundaries of pornography. As much as we like sci-fi, romance, mystery and adventure, please, no genre fiction.
Interview / Review
Don’t use Submittable for interviews or reviews…
We’re looking for smart, compelling book reviews and author interviews (or interviews of people in the publishing industry). We’re especially interested in giving attention to books from independent presses and authors (or publishing professionals) from historically marginalized groups.
Submit interviews/reviews HERE, not through Submittable.
We are also currently looking for micro reviews of recently released short literary work!
Submit micro reviews HERE
Photography + Art
1 piece, or link your portfolio
Art submissions are only open during free submission periods.
We want art steeped in memory & awareness. Art that eats donuts & watches cartoons on Saturday mornings. Art that lives next door. Whose parents are immigrants. Art that’s lowbrow. Pop-surreal. Hyperreal. Abstract. Art that reminds us of our humanity.