Thanks so much for your interest in MacQueen’s Quinterly! (Aka MacQ.)

MacQ’s publisher, curator, and founding editor Clare MacQueen takes to heart the advice from Poet’s Market: “Submission Guidelines are pure gold for the specific information they provide.” Thus, this page offers a vault-full of details that she hopes you will find helpful.

This information is updated periodically.

Projected Calendar for Submissions, 2023

Although MacQueen’s Quinterly continues to publish five issues per year, submissions are now considered during three reading periods each year. The first reading period in 2023, for Issue 18, was open from 20-26 March. And the second reading period was open from 7-16 July, for Issues 19 and 20.

Third Reading Period in 2023
(for two issues, 21 + 22):

~7–16 November (10 days)

Issue 21 is scheduled to launch on ~1 January 2024,
and Issue 22, a month later (~2 February).

(For historical data, see Submissions Calendar.)

Please scroll down for detailed guidelines...

Items 7 and 8 below list genres and forms that Clare typically publishes, and Item 12 (Restrictions) describes what she’s not looking for.

See also Ongoing Call for Cheribun and Haibun Stories, and Tanka Tales (updated 29 April 2023).

1. Electronic Submissions via Submittable Only: This is because MacQueen’s Quinterly has no staff to process paper submissions, and to Clare’s eternal chagrin, several emailed submissions have gotten lost in her hopelessly back-logged inbox!
   
   (The link to MacQ’s Submittable site appears at the bottom of this page.)
   
   
2. Updated 19 March 2023: Please submit previously uncurated works. That is, those which have not appeared in any curated collection, whether in print or online—such as anthologies, books, chapbooks, journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.
   
   This “leaves open the ability to self-publish on social media or blogs or message boards. It allows the work to be shared on podcasts and open mics,” as Rattle editor and curator Timothy Green writes in Uncurated: The Case for a New Term of Art. “Tweet your poems and flash fiction. Tag the person it was written for on Facebook. Workshop stories online. Blog chapters from your novel-in-progress. This is how a literary culture thrives” (Lit Mag News, 16 March 2023).
   
   Reprints: Clare MacQueen solicits “reprints” of previously curated works by contacting authors and artists directly.
   
   
3. Updated 18 May 2023: Note re AI-generated written works and digital art: Unless specifically identified as satire by the author or artist (and/or used in critical essays), all portions of works submitted to MacQ should be created by humans, generated by human intellect, emotions, and talent—and not by Artificial Intelligence technology such as ChatGPT and/or image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, Dall-E2, and MidJourney.
   
   AI technology includes the use of databases of millions of works, as well as related metadata, that have been harvested online, typically without the permission of the original writers, artists, and copyright holders.
   
   (See “Have AI image generators assimilated your art? New tool lets you check” by Benj Edwards in Ars Technica, 15 September 2022.)
   
   “The ability to copyright AI-generated artwork has not been tested in court, and the ethics of using artists’ work without consent ... to train neural networks that can create almost human-level artwork is still an open question being debated online” (from “Fearing copyright issues, Getty Images bans AI-generated artwork” by Benj Edwards in Ars Technica, 21 September 2022).
   
   Until these issues are legally resolved in the United States, Clare cannot in good conscience include AI-generated artworks in MacQueen’s Quinterly—even though she may think they look amazing.
   
   
4. Updated 26 July 2023: Three general submission categories were available during the reading period from 7-16 July for Issues 19 and 20 combined. Fees are in USD, and submission caps appear in brackets:
   
   “Folks New-to-MacQ: Up to 3 Works for $3” [40 files; up to 120 pieces]
   
   “Up to 12 Works for $4” [40 files; up to 480 pieces]
   
   “13 to 25 Micro-Works for $5” [10 files; up to 250 pieces]
   
   Proceeds from fees are being applied toward MacQ’s annual operating costs of about $700 USD, including domain registration, web hosting and security, and a no-frills Submittable subscription. For Clare MacQueen, the latter is simply indispensable as the most efficient way to keep submissions organized, which in turn helps her respond more quickly with results, whether acceptances or declines.
   
   Only one submission file per person was considered during this reading period. Authors and artists were asked to choose only one of the three submission categories when uploading their single submission file (though each file could contain multiple works of course). This limitation was designed to give other folks the opportunity to submit their works as well, especially those who have not yet published with MacQ.
   
   This issue is more important since Clare began placing caps on the number of submission files received. Submission caps will keep the overall volume more manageable so that Clare can, during an intensely focused ten-week reading and production cycle for two issues combined, give each submission file the careful consideration it deserves, hand code about 250 accepted pieces for the MacQ website, and still have time to respond personally (Yay or Nay) to each Author or Artist before those two issues are actually published.
   
   In addition to offering three general submission categories, Clare also invited 35 folks to submit no-fee Solicited Manuscripts with multiple pieces. During the ten-day submission period, a total of 110 submission files were received from the four submission categories combined, with a total of nearly 900 works to consider.
   
   Update 15 August 2023: Clare also ran a six-day, no-fee Special Call for specific poetic hybrids: haibun, haibun stories, cheribun, cheribun stories, and tanka tales. From 1-6 August, MacQ received a total of 35 poems (within a total of 15 submission files), and accepted 11 of those pieces.
   
   
5. Response time for submissions will vary, from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, up to a couple of months—the latter, when Clare’s gathering content for two issues at once.
   
   Even if a friend or colleague has already received a decision about their submission to MacQ, please be patient and bear with Clare. Please allow up to 60 days before sending her a note via Submittable asking for a status update. You can rest assured that she’s committed to responding sooner than the majority of literary venues, whose standard response time is 3-6 months or longer.
   
   
6. Simultaneous general submissions will be considered.
   
   These days, it’s safe to assume that the majority of general submissions are simultaneous. Which is understandable, of course. Still, MacQ’s publisher asks that writers be professional and send her a message right away via Submittable when work from their submission gets accepted by another venue.
   
   Please do not withdraw your submission of multiple pieces when only one or two have been accepted elsewhere. If you choose the “Withdraw” category in Submittable, then any other pieces in your original submission are no longer available for consideration. And if you want the other pieces to be “active” again, then you would need to resubmit them.
   
   
7. Visual Arts:
   
   
   • ⚡   MacQueen’s Quinterly is open to general submissions of color and/or black-and-white artworks in a range of forms; for example: drawings, paintings, photographs, quilts and textile arts, sculpture, and hybrid forms such as haiga, chaiga, taiga, and photo-poems (aka, shahai).
     
     Note re AI-generated digital art: Unless the artwork is specifically identified as satire by the artist, and/or used in a critical essay, Clare MacQueen will not intentionally publish digital art created by Artifical Intelligence technology, including image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2, and MidJourney. AI technology includes the use of databases of millions of works, as well as related metadata, that have been harvested online, typically without the permission of the original writers, artists, and copyright holders.
     
     (See “Have AI image generators assimilated your art? New tool lets you check” by Benj Edwards in Ars Technica, 15 September 2022.)
     
     “The ability to copyright AI-generated artwork has not been tested in court, and the ethics of using artists’ work without consent ... to train neural networks that can create almost human-level artwork is still an open question being debated online” (from “Fearing copyright issues, Getty Images bans AI-generated artwork” by Benj Edwards in Ars Technica, 21 September 2022).
     
     Until these issues are legally resolved in the United States, Clare cannot in good conscience include AI-generated artworks in MacQueen’s Quinterly—even though she may think they look amazing.
     
     
   • ⚡   Images may be low- to mid-resolution. Huge image files are discouraged, as they consume extra bandwidth.
     
     
   • ⚡   Images up to 440 pixels wide will fit the space available within the “content column” at the MacQ website.
     
     While Clare is happy to consider artworks of various shapes, orientations, and aspect ratios, she also must keep MacQ specifications in mind.
     
     
   • ⚡   Please embed artworks within a single Word document, or within a PDF, uploaded via the MacQ Submittable portal. If that process will not work for you, then feel free to query Clare about emailing individual jpeg files to her.
     
     Below each artwork, please include its title (if none, then indicate “untitled”), its date or year of creation, and the media used. Also very helpful: inclusion of links to any online galleries you have, such as your own website, Artfinder, Facebook, Flickr, Saatchi, etc. A world of thanks for your time!
     
     
8. The Kind of Writing MacQ Needs: Polished, evocative, literary works that balance “music and meaning” (to borrow from poet Richard Hugo) within a thousand words max, including the title and any footnotes or epigraphs (see higher word-count allowance under “Book reviews, interviews...” below), and using forms such as these:
   
   
   • ⚡  Prose poems
     
     
   • ⚡  Micro-fiction (up to 500 words each)
     
     
   • ⚡  Flash fiction (501–1,000 words each)
     
     
   • ⚡  CNF, personal essays, memoir, etc.
     
     
   • ⚡  Book reviews, interviews, critical essays, and NaB essays (i.e., Nuts and Bolts essays on the craft of writing or the creation of visual art such as haiga) may be no longer than 5,000 words each, including title, quotations, author-provided footnotes, and any epigraphs.
     
     
   • ⚡  Fables, allegories, and parables, whether light or dark, written for adults
     
     
   • ⚡  Literary hybrids such as cheribun, cheribun stories, haibun, haibun stories, haiga, taiga, chaiga, tanka prose, and tanka tales; for specific guidelines and tips, please see: Ongoing Call for Cheribun and Haibun Stories, and Tanka Tales
     
     
   • ⚡  Poetry, both free verse and formal, that travels the middle way between transparency and obscurity (i.e., accessible but with a measure of mystery)
     
     
   • ⚡  Ekphrastic works, in every genre MacQ publishes: fiction, nonfiction, lineated and prose poetry, hybrids such as cheribun, haibun, and tanka forms, AND visual arts (such as haiga, etc.).
     
     For specific tips on what MacQ is looking for, please see this essay by Jack Cooper and Clare MacQueen: Ephective Ekphrastics: A Guide to Verbalizing Art.
     
     Robert L. Dean, Jr. also offers excellent recommendations on ekphrastic writing, in his craft essay published in MacQ-13 (May 2022): Finding the Door: One Writer’s Approach to Ekphrasis.
     
     
   TIP: While considering submissions to MacQueen’s Quinterly, awards such as the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, The Best Small Fictions, Best Spiritual Literature (formerly the Orison Anthology), the Red Moon Anthologies, and The Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun loom over the decisions that Clare makes. She continues to be guided by the philosophy described so beautifully by poet Jack Cooper, who was her co-editor at KYSO Flash:
   
   “We look for works that knock our socks off, that is, prize-worthy material. Regardless of the genre, we cherish a unique voice, fresh language, and the sly use of literary devices such as metaphor and irony. We hope to be side-swiped, poked in the ribs, and otherwise smitten by an arresting idea, a compelling narrative, an exquisite lyric, or a moving account, all of which thread the perfect line between the personal and the universal.”
   
   
9. Word counts do not include author’s bio and other identifying information, but are limited to text and title of each piece, along with any epigraphs, quotations, and/or author footnotes.
   
   
   • ⚡   Reference notes provided by authors in reviews, interviews, and critical and NaB essays (i.e., Nuts-and-Bolts essays on the craft of writing or the creation of visual art such as haiga) will appear in MacQ with separate word counts.
     
     Separate word counts of any publisher footnotes added by Clare may sometimes (but not always) be included below the stats for each work, at the upper-right corner of the white content column of the webpage.
     
     
   • ⚡   Titles Do Matter! Once in the proverbial blue moon, MacQ receives submissions with a word count of “about a thousand,” only to discover that the author did not factor in, say, an eight-word title. Please be aware that such works may be declined, in large part because Clare is a one-person production army and often too busy to correspond with folks about which words to trim.
     
     By the way, one-word titles are okay.
     
     
   • ⚡   Works must be no longer than a thousand words each for all genres except critical essays, NaB (Nuts and Bolts) essays, reviews, and interviews—each of these four nonfiction genres may run up to 5,000 words in length.
     
     For all genres except tiny poems like haiku, cherita, and tanka (which traditionally do not have titles), the word count must include the title as well, because (1) the title is part of the work, and (2) Clare may want to nominate the work for competitions that have strict guidelines about word counts.
     
     
10. Subject Matter May Be Eclectic:
    
    
    • ⚡  The mundane and the marvelous...
    • ⚡  The ordinary and the extraordinary.
    • ⚡  Verisimilar fiction, as well as the surreal in moderate measure.
    • ⚡  And think outside the catacomb now and then—surprise readers with a little sunshine, and even some humor! 😊
      
      Yes, Clare appreciates quirky humor. Here are just half-a-dozen examples of funny pieces she was tickled to publish:
      
      Quite [prose poem] by Guy Biederman (Winner of MacQ’s “Triple-Q” Writing Challenge)
      
      Finnegan’s (Fiancée Goes McArthur Park on His Birthday) Cake [fiction] by John Brantingham (selected for reprinting in The Best Small Fictions 2022 Anthology)
      
      Beepbop [fiction] by Christopher Candice
      
      Another Bad Year for Florida Man [poem] by Gary Glauber
      
      Kids Deserve Decent Names [CNF] by Lana Hendershott
      
      Things I Wish I Had Asked the Wizard of Wazoo [CNF] by
      Linda Petrucelli
      
      * And for 40 more, see the results of Clare’s special call for humorous works in Issue 18 of MacQ.
    
    
11. More Examples of What MacQueen’s Quinterly Needs:
    
    
    • ⚡   For a kajillion (well, if not that many, then at least two thousand!), see MacQ’s first 19 issues.
      
      
    • ⚡  Twelve issues of MacQ’s “big sister” journal KYSO Flash are also freely available online, no subscription necessary. And perusing the final two issues especially, KF-11 and KF-12, will give you a good idea of the range of forms, styles, and themes that Clare’s looking to publish here in MacQ as well.
      
      (See also From the Archives: A Few of Clare’s Favorites, which lists contemporary works that she has enjoyed re-reading.)
      
      
    
    
12. Restrictions:
    
    
    • ⚡  Updated 18 May 2023: No AI-generated writing, unless author specifically identifies such a piece as satire, or uses examples of AI-generated writing within a critical essay, etc. Works submitted to MacQ should be created by humans, generated by human intellect, emotions, and talents—not by Artificial Intelligence technology such as ChatGPT.
      
      
    • ⚡  Updated 18 May 2023: Note re AI-generated digital art: Unless the artist identifies the work as satire, and/or includes it in a critical essay, Clare MacQueen will not intentionally publish digital art created by Artifical Intelligence technology, including image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2, and MidJourney. AI technology includes the use of databases of millions of works, as well as related metadata, that have been harvested online, typically without the permission of the original writers, artists, and copyright holders.
      
      (See “Have AI image generators assimilated your art? New tool lets you check” by Benj Edwards in Ars Technica, 15 September 2022.)
      
      “The ability to copyright AI-generated artwork has not been tested in court, and the ethics of using artists’ work without consent ... to train neural networks that can create almost human-level artwork is still an open question being debated online” (from “Fearing copyright issues, Getty Images bans AI-generated artwork” by Benj Edwards in Ars Technica, 21 September 2022).
      
      Until these issues are legally resolved in the United States, Clare cannot in good conscience include AI-generated artworks in MacQueen’s Quinterly—even though she may think they look amazing.
      
      
    • ⚡  No limericks, unless integral to a larger work.
      
      
    • ⚡  No gratuitous violence: remember, less is more.
      
      
    • ⚡  No “hate lit” (such as racial & gender-based rants).
      
      
    • ⚡  No children’s stories, but fables or fairy tales for adults will be happily considered.
      
      
    • ⚡  No hard-core fantasy, horror, romance, or sci-fi, though we happily consider fabulism and surrealist works in moderation.
      
      
    • ⚡  MacQ rarely publishes individual haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka, or cherita—unless they’re ekphrastic (and preferably accompanied by the artwork which inspired them). Tiny poems which appear within longer forms such as cheribun, haibun, and tanka prose, or within haiga, chaiga, taiga, photo-poems, etc., have a much better chance of getting published here. Also, linked poems, sequences, and split sequences of the aforementioned forms of micro-poetry will be happily considered.
      
      
    • ⚡  No pornography, although MacQ does publish erotica and literary works that contain explicit sexual themes and language. For example, this ekphrastic microfiction in Issue 18 of MacQ, by Lorette C. Luzajic (after a painting by Antoine Wiertz, Nude Behind the Curtain): Virgin
      
      And from Triggered: A Pillow Book (forthcoming in October 2023), this steamy piece by Alexis Rhone Fancher, offered as a sneak peek in Issue 19 of MacQ: Tongue and Groove
      
      (See also Jude Dillon’s micro-review of Triggered in Issue 20 of MacQ.)
      
      Then there’s this quartet of spicy and seductive poems by Ms. Rhone Fancher: Ode to My Husband’s Heart (in Issue 11 of MacQ, aka MacQ-11), Below our bedroom window (in MacQ-8), Morning Wood (in Issue 2 of KYSO Flash, aka KF-2), and I Prefer Pussy (in KF-6).
      
      And finally, these examples of erotic writing that Clare MacQueen would be happy to publish: This Close by Dorianne Laux, and First Sex by Sharon Olds.
      
      
    • ⚡  No hard-core evangelism and religious proselytizing, and no spiritual intolerance, although spiritual themes are indeed encouraged at MacQ, and literary works from a range of spiritual traditions are welcomed.
      
      
    • ⚡  No works that contain copyrighted song lyrics created by third parties—unless the author has permission in writing from the copyright holder. This also refers to photographs of contemporary paintings and other artworks, etc. The author must have written permission from the copyright holder before third-party lyrics and artworks can appear in MacQ.
      
      Third-party quotations, with full and proper attribution, are acceptable and even expected in critical and NaB essays, reviews, and interviews. PLEASE, have mercy on MacQ’s over-committed publisher—Clare’s a production army of one, with limited time for research—and include your sources. Plus links if at all possible. Huge thanks! ♥ ♥
      
      
    • ⚡  No gratuitous use of obscenities and vulgarities: Every word counts in short forms. Often, there’s little room for profanity. Of course, an occasional “fuck” can be quite useful and appropriate, in more ways than one. ☺ And “shit” has become all-purpose. But when such words are overused, they can weaken the work.
      
      For an exception to that shitty rule (wink wink), see Bob Lucky’s poem Shit (an adjective; a noun; a verb), a Sonnet.
      
      And for a skillful example of balanced and appropriate usage of more “industrial-strength” profanity, please see Tara Laskowski’s micro-fiction Ladies Night, which won first prize in the KYSO Flash Triple-F Writing Challenge.
      
      
13. Manuscript Formatting:
    
    
    • ⚡  NOTE: General submission files should be “anonymous.” That is, author’s name, contact info, and bio should NOT appear within the file, but should be entered in the appropriate boxes provided by Submittable. And no worries: Submittable keeps track of everything nicely by assigning a number to each submission file received.
      
      Solicited Manuscripts, of course, may include author identifying info as well as a bio.
      
      
    • ⚡  Times New Roman, 12 point, is a standard font these days, and also acceptable here for submissions. Previous contributors to KYSO Flash and MacQueen’s Quinterly are welcome to continue using the sans-serif font Verdana, if you would like, or switch to Times New Roman if preferred.
      
      In any case, please avoid script or fancy fonts. They fatigue the eyes and the brain, as confirmed by usability studies. If specific fonts are integral to your work (for example, to forms of concrete poetry), then please include a brief note with your submission.
      
      
    • ⚡  For the most part, cover letters are not needed—our overwhelmed publisher typically has no time to read them, much less to reply. But if you do include one, please do not explain your work upfront or, worse, spoil any surprises in it by giving things away in your letter. Upfront explanations can create bias in the reader, which may or may not work in the writer’s favor.
      
      
    • ⚡  Manuscripts should include at least one-inch margins.
      
      
    • ⚡  Manuscript pages should be numbered sequentially.
      
      
    • ⚡  Double space prose works such as flash fiction, essays, and reviews. Tiny fictions, prose poems, lineated poems, and poetic hybrids such as haibun and tanka forms may be single spaced, of course.
      
      
    
    
14. Clare’s shameless ambition? For online visitors’ viewing and reading pleasure, she aims to showcase a few hundred memorable works each year in MacQueen’s Quinterly. To that end, she will gladly consider scads of submissions while searching for the editor’s Holy Grail, those gems that will make her weep and holler and laugh out loud, or even speak in tongues, all in admiration of their creators.

Hoping to see your writing and artworks soon. Thank you so much!

MacQ’s Submission Manager