Submission Opportunities: April 2025

What‘s better than your favorite sandwich for lunch? Eating it while knocking out submission goals. Each month, Story Street shares open or upcoming submission opportunities we’re looking at to get you hungry for publication. Grab a sandwich, be a grinder, and sink your teeth into those subs!  subs! 

Story Street is going to be hosting a live submission party on our YouTube live stream. Monday, April 7 starting at 1pm EST. Join the chat, follow along while you eat your lunch and submit some kick-butt writing along with us!

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Hypertext Magazine| Deadline: May 31 or before if quota is met

Short fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, interviews, and delightful surprises that merge genres and bend rules.

Fee: $5 | Pay: $60 per piece

Type: Fiction/Nonfiction/Essays

Notes: Editors try to respond within 120 days

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Monkeybicycle| Deadline: Rolling

Wide-ranging literary magazine open to all genres of fiction, including experimental, for stories up to 2,000 words. They also publish weekly, one-sentence stories.

Fee: $0 | Pay: $0

Type: Fiction

Notes: Editors respond within in 16 weeks

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Vestal Review| Deadline: May 31 for Spring Reading Period

Looking for a home for flash fiction 500 words or less? Vestal Review believes that’s the sweet spot! They accept all genres and seek non-preachy stories that appeal to their over-18 target audience. Humor is a plus! Priority consideration is given to writers from underrepresented groups.

Fee: $3 | Pay: $75 via PayPal

Type: Flash Fiction no longer than 500 words.

Notes: Editors try to respond within 30 days.

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100 Word Story| Deadline: Open April 1-10 (and the first week of every month)

100 Word Story accepts prose of exactly 100 words–no more, no less. (Title is not part of the 100 words.)

Fee: $2 (Free for Underrepresented Writers)| Pay: $0

Type: Fiction/Memoir/Essays

Notes: Please include a short bio of 25 words or less. The average response time is 42 days.

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Bomb Magazine| Deadline: April 15

BOMB Magazine’s 2025 Fiction Contest is open for submissions, and the Pulitzer Prize finalist and MacArthur Fellow Kelly Link is this year’s guest judge. Entries must be blind and consist of a single work of short fiction no more than 5,000 words. Winners and finalists will be announced in July 2025.

Fee: $30 (includes a 1-year print subscription to BOMB. For details and exceptions, see website) | Pay: Winner Receives $1,000 and publication.

Type: Fiction

Notes: Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but work must be previously unpublished.

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Ploughshares| Deadline: May 15

Ploughshares Emerging Writers Contest recognizes work by an emerging writer in each of three genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Authors are considered “emerging” if they haven’t published or self-published a book in any genre.

Fee: $30 (Includes a 1-year print and digital subscription to Ploughshares and free submissions to the 2025 regular reading period—June 1-January 15) | Pay: Winner Receives $2,000 and publication in the Winter 2025-26 issue.

Type: Fiction/Poetry/Essays

Notes: One submission per author for the contest’s duration is considered, regardless of genre. Simultaneous submissions to other journals are fine if they are notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. 

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Master’s Review | Deadline: April 6, 2025

Welcomes submissions of previously unpublished fiction up to 6,000 words from writers who have never published in the genre. 

Fee: $20 | Pay: The first-place winner will receive a $3,000 grand prize and a two-year subscription to Duotrope, while second- and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200, respectively. All winners will also receive a license for Scrivener, Literature & Latte’s organizational writing software, as well as a copy of Best Emerging Writers, an anthology by The Masters Review, which will be published in May 2025.

Type: Fiction

Notes:  Submitted work must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs, social media accounts, and other websites. Previously published work will be automatically disqualified. Emerging writers with publication history in poetry and creative nonfiction are welcome to submit their debut fiction, as are self-published writers and writers with fiction publications in campus magazines.

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CRAFT | Deadline: May 18, 2025

The Craft 2025 Short Fiction Prize with guest judge Halle Hill is seeking unpublished short fiction.

Fee: $20 | Pay: The first-place winner will receive a $2,000 award, online publication, and our writerly Tech Bonus worth up to $500! The second- and third-place finalists will receive $500 and $300, respectively, along with online publication.

Type: Short Fiction (1,000-5,000 words)

Notes: All entries are considered for publication in CRAFT

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The Audacity | Deadline: None

Roxane Gay’s newsletter, THE AUDACITY, features essays from emerging writers twice a month.

Fee: $0 | Pay: $1,500 flat rate

Type: Nonfiction (1500 -3000 words)

Notes: Only open to emergent writers (fewer than three article/essay/short story publications and no published books or book contracts).

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Fractured Lit| Deadline: April 13

Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize looks for stories that use flash fiction’s brevity and lyricism to create new twists on these familiar traditions. Stories that take a slant approach, that create and illuminate the shadows, that awaken the reader to new ways of looking at our past and future; stories that scare us with their resonance, their attention to detail, and characters who get in and out of trouble.

Short fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, interviews, and delightful surprises that merge genres and bend rules.

Fee: $20 allows up to two stories of up to 1,000 words per entry | Pay: First place: $3,000 and publication. Second- and third-place place: publication and $300 and $200, respectively

Type: Fiction

Notes: Only consider unpublished work for contests—no reprints, including self-published work (even on blogs and social media), are considered. Reprints will be automatically disqualified.