submissions

The Summer 2010 issue submission period closed as of March 15. Thanks to all who submitted work for consideration!

Please see below for our practical guidelines. And as always, we advise that you familiarize yourself with New Madrid before submitting your work.

 

General Submission Guidelines

New Madrid is published twice per year, during the July and January residencies of Murray State University's low-residency MFA Program. The editors invite previously unpublished submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Please submit manuscripts only during our open Submission Periods (see below). Any submissions sent outside those periods won't be read.

 

SUBMISSION PERIODS

January 15 through March 15: Summer issue

August 15 through October 15: Winter issue

See Upcoming Themes for information about what we're seeking for developing issues.

 

SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT

We only accept manuscripts through our Submission Manager. Please note that we don't accept electronic submissions via direct email.

 

FORMAT

• Submissions should be in MS Word format with a 12-point font, such as Times New Roman or Arial.

• The attachment should end with ".doc" in the file name. (Important: Please do not submit files with the .docx extension).

• The author's name and contact information should appear on the first page of the submission, and the pages should be numbered.

• Please include a brief author bio in the "comments" section of Submissions Manager.

Prose submissions should be double spaced (20 pages maximum).

Poetry submissions should be single spaced (six poems maximum).

 

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

We're happy to consider simultaneous submissions, with the request that you inform us if a piece has been accepted by another publication and is no longer available. Should that occur, please follow these guidelines:

Prose: If a prose piece you've submitted gets picked up by another publication, please withdraw it directly through our online Submission Manager (see Submitting Your Manuscript above).

Poetry: If any poem (one or multiple) submitted as part of a batch gets picked up by another publication, please withdraw the submission through our online Submission Manager, delete the unavailable poems, and resubmit the batch.*

* An exception occurs if you submitted before the close of the Submission Period (see Submission Periods above) but need to withdraw a poem within a batch after the close of the Submission Period. If the Submission Period has closed and you still want a portion of your batch considered, do not withdraw your submission (if your resubmission falls outside the Submission Period, we can't consider it). Instead, if this exception applies to you, please email the editor Ann Neelon with a copy to our general email, explaining your circumstance.

 

RESPONSE TIME

We read manuscripts on a rolling basis through each of our two annual submission periods, and it's our policy to respond to every submission. As a rule, we respond after the close of the reading period. So if you've submitted during the January-April reading period, expect a response by May. If you've submitted during the August-November reading period, expect a response by December.

All submission responses come via electronic mail, from newmadrid@murraystate.edu.

We've found that because our responses are generated through Submission Manager, they sometimes get filtered. To ensure you receive our messages, please set your email preferences to allow messages from newmadrid@murraystate.edu. Also, you can always check the status of your submission by logging into Submission Manager.

 

RIGHTS

It is our editorial policy to accept only previously unpublished work—we consider work published on the web to be previously published.

For our terms, we acquire first North American serial rights for one-time use in our print publication.

We also request the author's permission to post the same piece on this web site, as part of the table of contents for the issue in which it appears (web permission is at the author's discretion).

Acknowledgment in Future Publications

Should a piece first published in New Madrid be included subsequently in another work, we request that the new work include an acknowledgment of the first publication. For example: ["Title"] by [Author] first appeared in Volume [Number], New Madrid, Journal of Contemporary Literature, [Winter 2009]. Reprinted by permission.

 

COMPENSATION

We pay with two contributor’s copies.

 

masthead

Summer 2010 Issue