GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES







The Puritan seeks submissions all year round, from anywhere in the world.

Find out how to send us your work! If you’re interested in supporting the magazine, check out our Patreon and learn about the perks you can get as a supporter, including feedback on your work and free entry to our writing contest.

Submissions received between Dec. 26 and Mar. 25 are considered for the spring issue, published in early May. Those received between Mar. 26 and June 25 are considered for the summer issue, published in late early Aug. Those received between June 26 and Sept. 25 are considered for the fall issue, published in Nov. Those received between Sept. 26 and Dec. 25 are considered for the winter issue, published in Feb.

Our publication rates as of Summer 2019 are:

$100 per traditional interview, (one interviewer, one or two interviewees); $150 per roundtable interview (one interviewer, three or more interviewees): $150 per collaborative piece (collaborative reviews, creative pieces, etc, $75 per collaborator),

$200 per essay,

$100 per review,

$150 per work of fiction, and

$25 per poem (or page, capped at $80 for poems running four pages or more).

Check back with the magazine regularly; The Puritan is working ever assiduously to increase these figures.

Please note that we can only issue payments using PayPal, Canadian bank e-transfer, or a cheque in the mail. We also pay in CAD. We can pay using Western Union if no other option is available.

Please note that the publication rates for works that appear in our occasional Supplement Series are reduced due to volume. Each accepted work of non-fiction, fiction, or group of poems will receive an honorarium of $20.

Regular submissions to the magazine are free of charge and should fall under one of five categories: fiction, essays, poetry, interviews, and reviews. Unless we are soliciting your work, all submissions must be previously unpublished (this includes self-publishing, publishing on blogs, and in chapbook format). Only e-mail submissions through our online submissions manager are accepted (save those trees for maypoles, or theses).

Send all questions and messages to puritanmagazine [at] gmail [dot] com



The Puritan prefers not to publish fiction or poetry by the same writer more than once a year. If you have been published in the magazine, please only submit again after a year has elapsed (this guideline does not apply to contests, or non-fiction).

Upon receiving your submission, we will respond with an e-mail confirmation within a few days. You may have to wait a few months to hear back from us on our final verdict. This is standard procedure. Only inquire about your work if you haven’t heard back from us after four months.

Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but please remember to inform us immediately if your work is picked up by another publication. Please only submit one story, one review, one interview, one essay, or up to four poems per issue reading period. Any additional work received will be deleted without acknowledgement.

The Puritan purchases first North American serial rights for published works, reverting back to the author upon publication. We would appreciate a statement of acknowledgement in any reprinted editions. The Puritan grants permission to anthologists for printing contributors’ work if their whereabouts are unknown.

For all work other than poetry, please abide by the following rules. Leave only one space after periods. Use three periods for an ellipsis … like so. Double-space your work, include your name and contact information on the first page, provide a clear title, and number your pages. Use a no-nonsense font (submissions in Comic Sans, Jokerman, and Papyrus will be cast off immediately). Use proper EM dashes and try to abide by Canadian spelling (and spellcheck, proofread, obsess, etc.). Be consistent in your formatting.

SPECIFIC GUIDELINES

Fiction

As our mandate describes, feel encouraged to push boundaries. We have diverse tastes; try us out. Length is up to you, but a story over 10,000 words will only be considered if it is of exceptional quality (and nothing over 12,000 words, please). Stories of high quality and high word counts may be considered for serialization. Please read the fiction in our last two or three issues from our Archive in order to familiarize yourself with the work we’ve published. Only send one story at a time, unless you are writing flash fiction (or stories under 500 words), in which case you can send up to three.

Essays

Please include a succinct essay pitch of no more than 250 words in the Cover Letter field. Pitches should compel us with daring ideas and urgent, captivating writing. If you’ve written the essay, attach your working draft as a Word doc. If you haven’t written it yet, attach a writing sample of published or unpublished non-fiction prose as a Word doc.

Please read recently published essays in our Archive in order to familiarize yourself with the work we’ve published and to get a sense of the range of essay lengths and topics. Only submit one pitch per submission period.

Poetry

Baffle us, tangle us up, or break our hearts. We’re looking for poems of any length (including sequences and long poems). Once again, please familiarize yourself with our last two issues. Send up to four poems at a time.

Interviews

We’re looking for longer-form interviews that take deep dives in compelling literary questions that push the boundaries of literature and/or build bridges with non-literary art disciplines. As a literary magazine, our focus is on the literary arts, but we also want to see pieces that expand the literary conversation to engage with the larger dialogues happening in our societies. We want to see the literary silos broken open.

We welcome a wide range of forms such as traditional one-on-one conversations, roundtable discussions, narrative thought-pieces, critical engagements with a text, creative exchanges (visual, literary, etc), and more. We’d like you to surprise us. If you look at our archives, you’ll get a sense of the range and depth we are looking for—though we are always looking for new and fresh approaches.

We are open to seeing finished pieces, or hearing ideas. Get at us.

To pitch a specific interview or conversation, please contact Interviews Editors E Martin Nolan and Cho Min at puritan.magazine.interviews@gmail.com.

Payment Information:

Traditional Interviews, Narrative Interviews, etc. (one interviewer, one or two interviewees): $100

Roundtable interviews (one interviewer, 3 or more interviewees): $150

Collaborative Pieces (collaborative reviews, creative pieces, etc): $75 per collaborator

Reviews

We are looking for pitches for 1500-5000 word reviews of recently released writing in any genre (including non-fiction). We generally publish reviews of books from small(er) Canadian publishers, but are open to other works, as well. We do not publish reviews of chapbooks (please see blog submission guidelines below for chapbook reviews).

In your pitch, indicate why you think the book warrants attention, why others would be interested in it, and how you plan to approach the review. If possible, attach a writing sample and/or links to your work.

For pitches, review copies, publisher catalogues, press releases, and related inquiries, please contact Reviews Editors Kelly Whitehead and Emilie Kneifel at puritanreviews@gmail.com.

SUBMIT ONLINE.