GENERAL SUBMISSIONS
General Submission Notes
Poetry, fiction, nonfiction and reviews are accepted through Submittable only. Please send no more than five poems, two short-shorts, one story, or one essay per submission. For reviews, we accept pitches or completed pieces; see guidelines below.
You can find more information about what our genre editors would like to read under Submission Calls below.
General submissions open on September 1 and close on November 15.
Our annual prose and poetry contests run each spring.
We aim to respond to submissions within four months, but sometimes things take longer than we’d like. Please do not query us on the status of your submission until six months have elapsed.
Cost of Submission
General submissions require a submission fee of $3.00 per submission to help pay for online submission services. Submissions in more than one genre should be submitted separately and require separate submission fees.
If our fee presents financial hardship, please contact us at fugue@uidaho.edu so that we can offer you a fee-free submission option.
Simultaneous Submissions
We consider simultaneous submissions (submissions sent concurrently to another journal or journals) as long as you let us know in the cover letter that this is the case and notify us immediately if a piece has been accepted elsewhere.
SUBMISSION CALLS
Fiction
Send us the stories that need to be out in the world. The ones we couldn’t ask you to send us, because we don’t yet know we need them. Whether you’re trying something old in a way we haven’t seen, or something new in a way that feels immediately classic, we want to read the stories you make essential: the voice that we can’t get out of our head, the off-kilter narrative, the questions that don’t have ready answers. Surprise us.
We are especially eager to be a platform for voices that are consciously, unconsciously, and systemically underrepresented.
While we love reading stories of all lengths, it is difficult to make space for anything over 15 pages in Fugue. Please attach your story as a .pdf, .doc or .docx file.
Finally, we know the anxiety of submission; we are grateful for your trust and look forward to reading your stories.
Nonfiction
We're here for literary nonfiction broadly conceived — from personal essays to hybrid works to criticism or theory (or some combination thereof!) — that is both grounded and imaginative.We want to read prose that is structurally playful or daring, work that engages with genre and tradition in new ways, and/or sees the ordinary as extraordinary. We are especially excited by works that are part of a larger conversation. In any case, we are looking for compelling narratives of inquiry and discovery and work that makes us think, see things differently, and feel more fully alive.
Pieces longer than 15 pages are not disqualified from consideration, but they are unlikely to be accepted—so if you've got to go long, make it astonishing.
We eagerly welcome, encourage, and crave submissions from Black, Indigenous, queer and trans folks, writers of color, and disabled writers, and we hope to include both established and new voices in our pages. We can't wait to read your work.
Poetry
We are especially interested in work that is curious about the world, the boundaries of form, and the limits of language. Show us your deep fascinations and distinct point-of-view.
We aim to uplift and honor the work of poets from underrepresented socioeconomic backgrounds, abilities, gender identities, sexualities, races, and ethnicities.
Please send 3-5 poems with a maximum submission length of 10 pages. Send all poems in one document. Please attach your work as a .pdf, .doc, or .docx file.
Art and Hybrid Forms
We’re interested in hybrid and cross-genre work that tells a story while gut-punching us with emotion in a way that traditional genre conventions cannot. Send us your text images, cross-genre writing, sound art, paintings, photographs, collages, videos, dances, screenprints, drawings, sculptures, textiles, electronics, and other uncategorizable art and writing.
Mesmerize us with a poem interrupted by a photo collage interrupted by a short essay. Dazzle us with art that plays with proportion, movement, color, body, shape, and value.
We have a broad concept of what constitutes art and hybrid forms, so we’d love to engage with work that portrays your definition. Whether your hybrid work touches on topics about social/cultural/political experiences through layers of paint, text, and a juxtaposition of mediums, or whether it depicts personal experiences that play with colors, space, and sounds—we want to experience it.
Submit your work in a single document as a .pdf, .doc or .docx, .jpg, .png, .mp3, or .mp4 file; if we accept your work for publication, we will communicate with you about image quality and how we can best showcase your work. Publication is contingent on sending a high-quality/high-resolution version of the work. If you’re sending us multiple pieces, please indicate whether those are stand-alone works or part of a series.
Please also include a brief artist statement that describes your project and contextualizes your art practice
Reviews and Interviews
We are seeking pieces by writers who engage with books and their authors on both a critical and a personal level. We aim to publish reviews and interviews that would have trouble finding a home elsewhere—reviews that push the boundaries of the criticism genre (think personal narrative, think fabulism, think essays in conversation with multiple texts, think of lit crit that reaches out into discussion of music and movies and games and art), and interviews that make neighbors of the interviewer, author, and reader (think conversations that expand beyond the text, think embodied description and ephemera that brings us into the room, think questions and answers that spiral into diatribes, arguments, and bits.)
Fugue is interested in thoughtful and artful explorations of what you’re reading and who you’re talking to. We’re as interested in hidden gems as we are in new releases. We have a special magnetism toward reviews of small press books, works that defy genre categorization, and authors who create something rare in a rapidly homogenizing publishing landscape. We’re especially looking for long takes (while we don’t have a word count in mind, we hope to have plenty of time to be immersed in your perspective and conversation). Make us think with our heads, our hearts, our hands. And most of all, remind us why we love the written word.
While we accept simultaneous submissions, please do us the courtesy of notifying us immediately when a work is accepted elsewhere.
In your submission, please include a brief bio. Also include the full title, author, publisher, and publication year of the book(s) you are reviewing or discussing.
Complete review and interview submission are accepted through Submittable only. We also accept pitches for reviews and interviews via fuguereviews@gmail.com.
Looking for information about our annual contest?