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MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Updated: 28 Sept. 2026

Submission Guidelines


Huge thanks for your interest in MacQueen’s Quinterly! Aka MacQ, informally. And soon to be formally: A relatively streamlined MacQ with a focus on micro-works will launch in mid-January 2027. This arts and literary journal will continue to be published online only, freely available to anyone with internet access. No subscriptions necessary.

While five anthology-length issues of MacQueen’s Quinterly have appeared each year since January 2020, the “new” MacQ will be a quadri-monthly (aka triannual) journal, whose three issues each year will appear four months apart: in January, May, and September.

Other elements of streamlining include the discontinuation of VIDA and submission statistics, and the significant distillation of publishing agreements. These changes will save considerable time and effort for MacQ’s founder, whose energies are more limited these days.

Clare MacQueen, publisher, curator, and founding editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly, 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.


Timeline for Submissions:

Although MacQueen’s Quinterly is published five times per year, submissions have been considered during three primary reading periods each year beginning in 2024. (For those interested in specific historical data about MacQ’s timeline, see Submission Calendar.)

I. The first reading period in 2026 took place from 21-27 April:

After launching Issue 31 in early January, Clare began a five-month sabbatical to catch up on other publication projects, including the full-length poetry collection Borrowed from Heaven. But she cut the sabbatical several weeks short given her concern that MacQ was unavailable to publish haibun, one of her favorite forms since 2014. Two haibun venues had closed in late 2025, Failed Haiku (US) and The Haibun Journal (Ireland), and Drifting Sands Haibun (US) had funding challenges in 2025 and 2026.
With a group of her frequent contributors in mind, Clare ran a special call for haibun in April. A limited number of no-fee submissions were also available for new-to-MacQ haibunistas, i.e., haibun practitioners whose work had not yet been published in MacQueen’s Quinterly nor in KYSO Flash. Issue 32 of MacQ was published on 6 June with 118 pieces, including 49 haibun.
Please Note: Clare asks new-to-MacQ haibun, cheribun, and tanka-prose poets to peruse her guidelines, MacQ Needs Cheribun, Haibun, and Tanka Tales! for specific details re what she’s looking for. And she includes links to examples of these hybrid forms that she was delighted to publish, plus links to two dozen which went on to win awards.
For those who may be curious about the numerous haibun varieties (30 of them thus far), see The Haibun Zoo: A Guide to Current Rare Haibun Forms by Colleen M. Farrelly in Issue 30X of MacQueen’s Quinterly (December 2025).

II. Reading period #2 took place in June 2026, in two stages as below. Submissions were considered for Issues 33 and 34 of MacQ, which launched respectively on 15 August and 20 September.

Stage One: 11–17 June: MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #4.
(Clare plans to publish an anthology early next year, selected from cheribun published in MacQ from January 2022 thru January 2027.)
Stage 2A: 21–27 June: For new-to-MacQ folks.*
(The two submission categories initially available under this category closed in less than 48 hours, as soon as each one’s submission cap was reached.)
Stage 2B: 21–27 June: For solicited manuscripts.

III. Reading period #3 is scheduled for October 2026, and will take place in stages as below. Submissions will be considered for Issue 35 of MacQueen’s Quinterly, which will launch in late November 2026; and for Issue 2027.1 of the streamlined MacQ, launching in mid-January 2027.

Stage One: For new-to-MacQ folks.*
Opens on 3 October at 00:01 (aka 12:01 AM) Eastern Daylight Time (US), and closes at 11:59 PM EDT on 4 October—or as soon as the submission cap is reached, whichever occurs earlier.
Stage Two: 11–17 October: For solicited manuscripts.

For historical data about MacQ’s timeline, see Submission Calendar.

*New-to-MacQ folks are those whose work has not yet been published in MacQueen’s Quinterly (2020 to the present) nor in her predecessor journal, KYSO Flash (2014 thru 2019).

 

Please scroll down for detailed guidelines...

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

Beginning with the October 2026 reading period, max word counts
have decreased, and genres and forms have been adjusted.
Significant changes appear in Items 4, 8, and 9 below.

See also MacQ Needs Cheribun, Haibun, and Tanka Tales!


  1. Electronic Submissions via Submittable Only: This is because MacQueen’s Quinterly has no staff to process paper submissions. Clare is a one-person production army with chronic illnesses to manage as well—and emailed submissions have gotten lost in her backlogged inbox more than once, she’s embarrassed to say.

    (The link to MacQ’s Submittable portal appears at the bottom of this page.)

  2. With the exception of writing for Challenges—which should be original and unpublished anywhere—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.

  3. No AI-generated work! Writing submitted to MacQueen’s Quinterly should be created by humans, generated by human intellect, emotions, and talents—not by Artificial Intelligence technology such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Sudowrite, and others.

    The same is true for visual art: Clare MacQueen will not intentionally publish artworks created by Artifical Intelligence technology, including image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, DreamStudio, MidJourney, DreamUp, Photoshop with AI features, etc. This is because 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. In other words, stolen.

    Trial is scheduled for 5 April 2027 in the litigation case of Andersen v. Stability AI: “Visual artist plaintiffs allege direct and induced copyright infringement, DMCA violations, false endorsement and trade dress claims based on the creation and functionality of Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion and DreamStudio, Midjourney Inc.’s eponymous generative AI tool, and DeviantArt’s DreamUp” (from Case Tracker: Artificial Intelligence, Copyrights and Class Actions edited by Theresa M. Weisenberger at BakerHostetler law firm, which monitors copyright issues related to generative AI technology).

    See also “Who Owns the Future? Why the AI Copyright Wars of 2026 Will Define Creativity Forever” (2 April 2026) by Kesser Karim, engineer at the University of Portsmouth, UK:

    “Over 25 copyright infringement cases are currently pending in US federal courts against some of the most powerful companies in the world—GitHub, OpenAI, Stability AI, and Meta among them. Artists claim their work was scraped without consent to train AI models. Writers say their books were fed into systems that now compete with them commercially. Musicians allege their entire catalogues were ingested without a single licensing fee paid. [Ed. note: See Top Noteworthy Copyright Stories from February 2026 by Rachel Kim at Copyright Alliance (4 March 2026).]

    “In March 2026, the US Supreme Court declined to hear a dispute [Thaler v. Perlmutter] over copyrights for AI-generated material, leaving a dangerous legal vacuum at the very top of the American judicial system. There is no definitive ruling. There is no clear framework. There is only uncertainty—and billions of dollars of AI development charging forward through it.”

    Until these issues are legally resolved in the United States, Clare cannot in good conscience, and will not intentionally, publish AI-generated artworks in MacQueen’s Quinterly—even though she may think they look amazing.

  4. Only one submission file per person will be considered—but that single file may contain multiple short-form pieces and genres. In fact, Clare prefers to consider multiples!

    A single submission file may contain up to ten micro-works, i.e., those that are no longer than 500 words each. (See Item 8 below for a list of preferred genres and forms.) Word count includes title of each piece and any epigraphs and/or author footnotes. Word count of any Author’s Commentary is listed separately, and should not exceed 500 words. Total word count of the single submission file must be no more than five thousand.

    An alternative: The submission file may contain up to five flash-length nonfiction works in these forms: book reviews, and NaB (Nuts and Bolts) essays on craft and/or process. Each flash-length piece must be no longer than a thousand words, including title and any epigraphs and/or author footnotes.

    Mix and match: The submission file may contain a mix of micro-works of various forms (as described under Item 8 below) and flash-length nonfiction (book reviews and essays on craft). Up to ten pieces may be included as long as the total word count of the file is no more than five thousand. (To reiterate, word count includes the title of each piece as well as any epigraphs and/or author footnotes.)

  5. Response time for submissions will vary, from a few hours up to 60 days (~eight weeks)—the latter, especially when Clare’s gathering content for two issues at the same time.

    Even if a friend or colleague has already received a decision about their submission, 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.

  6. Simultaneous general submissions will be considered, with the exception of works entered in MacQ Writing Challenges—the latter works should not be under consideration anywhere else, nor should they be previously curated, or published (including on author websites, social media, etcetera).

    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.

  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).

      No AI-generated visual artworks! Clare MacQueen will not intentionally publish art created by Artifical Intelligence technology, including image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, DreamStudio, MidJourney, DreamUp, Photoshop with AI features, etc. This is because 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. In other words, stolen.

      Trial is scheduled for 5 April 2027 in the litigation case of Andersen v. Stability AI: “Visual artist plaintiffs allege direct and induced copyright infringement, DMCA violations, false endorsement and trade dress claims based on the creation and functionality of Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion and DreamStudio, Midjourney Inc.’s eponymous generative AI tool, and DeviantArt’s DreamUp” (from Case Tracker: Artificial Intelligence, Copyrights and Class Actions edited by Theresa M. Weisenberger at BakerHostetler law firm, which monitors copyright issues related to generative AI technology).

      See also “Who Owns the Future? Why the AI Copyright Wars of 2026 Will Define Creativity Forever” (2 April 2026) by Kesser Karim, engineer at the University of Portsmouth, UK:

      “Over 25 copyright infringement cases are currently pending in US federal courts against some of the most powerful companies in the world—GitHub, OpenAI, Stability AI, and Meta among them. Artists claim their work was scraped without consent to train AI models. Writers say their books were fed into systems that now compete with them commercially. Musicians allege their entire catalogues were ingested without a single licensing fee paid. [Ed. note: See Top Noteworthy Copyright Stories from February 2026 by Rachel Kim at Copyright Alliance (4 March 2026).]

      “In March 2026, the US Supreme Court declined to hear a dispute [Thaler v. Perlmutter] over copyrights for AI-generated material, leaving a dangerous legal vacuum at the very top of the American judicial system. There is no definitive ruling. There is no clear framework. There is only uncertainty—and billions of dollars of AI development charging forward through it.”

      Until these issues are legally resolved in the United States, Clare cannot in good conscience, and will not intentionally, publish AI-generated artworks in MacQueen’s Quinterly—even though she may think they look amazing.

    • ⚡   Images may be low- to mid-resolution. Recommended file type is jpeg, and no more than 150 KB in size. Huge image files are strongly discouraged, as they consume too much bandwidth. No TIFF files, please.

    • ⚡   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 her website’s limitations in mind.

    • ⚡   Please embed hybrid artworks such as haiga within a single Word document, or within a PDF, uploaded via the MacQ Submittable portal. If that process doesn’t work for you, feel free to query Clare about emailing individual jpeg files to her.

      Below each artwork, please include its title, if any, the date or year of creation, and the media used. Also very useful: inclusion of links to any online galleries you have, such as your own website, Facebook, Artfinder, Saatchi Art, etc. A world of thanks for your time!

  8. The Kind of Writing MacQ Needs: Polished, evocative, literary works that balance “music and meaning” (Richard Hugo, “Writing Off the Subject”) and use these forms:



    TIP: While considering submissions to MacQueen’s Quinterly, awards such as the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Spiritual Literature (formerly the Orison Anthology), the Red Moon Anthologies, and The Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun influence 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.

    Word counts apply to all genres, including poetry. In addition to line requirements of structured forms (for instance, cherita have six lines arranged in three stanzas), Clare also counts words. Sequences of micro-poems, cheribun, haibun, prose poems, tanka prose, etc. may be no longer than 500 words, including the sequence title, any titles of individual pieces within the sequence, and any footnotes, etc.

    • ⚡   Reference notes provided by authors in book reviews and NaB essays (i.e., Nuts-and-Bolts essays on the process of writing or the creation of visual art such as haiga) may appear in MacQ with separate word counts.

      Separate word counts of any publisher footnotes added by Clare may occasionally 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, Clare receives a submission 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 production army of one person who’s often too overwhelmed to correspond with folks about trimming words. By the way, one-word titles are okay.

    • ⚡   Works must be no longer than 500 words each for all genres and forms except book reviews and NaB (Nuts and Bolts) essays (aka, essays on process)—these nonfiction forms may run to a thousand words in length, including title, etc.

  10. Subject Matter May Be Eclectic:


  11. More Examples of What MacQueen’s Quinterly Needs:

    • ⚡   For a kajillion—well, if not that many, then at least three thousand!—see MacQ’s archive of 37 issues (i.e., 1-34, plus three special issues: 10X, 20X, and 30X), representing six years of publishing.

    • ⚡  Plus, 12 issues of MacQ’s retired sister-journal KYSO Flash (representing an additional six years of publishing) are also freely available online, no subscription necessary. See From the Archives: A Few of Clare’s Favorites, which lists a total of 143 contemporary works, 100 of which were published in KYSO Flash.)


  12. Restrictions:

    • ⚡  No AI-generated work: Writing submitted to MacQueen’s Quinterly should be created by humans, generated by human intellect, emotions, and talents—not by Artificial Intelligence technology such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Sudowrite, and others. The same is true for visual artworks. Please see details under Visual Art above.

    • ⚡  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 short stories—fiction pieces must be micro length, i.e., no longer than 500 words each, including title and any epigraphs or author footnotes.

    • ⚡  No hard-core fantasy, horror, romance, or sci-fi, though MacQ happily considers fabulism and surrealist works in moderation.

    • ⚡  Clare rarely publishes single tanshi (i.e., micro-poems of six lines or fewer, such as haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka, and cherita)—unless they’re ekphrastic, and preferably accompanied by the artwork which inspired them. Multiple tiny poems, and those which appear within longer forms such as cheribun, haibun, and tanka prose, or those within haiga, chaiga, taiga, photo-poems, etc., have a better chance of getting published here. Also, linked poems, sequences, and split sequences of the aforementioned forms of micro-poetry will be gladly considered.

    • ⚡  No 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 MacQueen’s Quinterly.

      Third-party quotations, with full and proper attribution, are acceptable and even expected in NaB essays (aka essays on process and/or craft) and book reviews. PLEASE, have mercy on MacQ’s over-committed publisher—Clare’s a production army of one, with limited time and energy for research—and include your sources. Plus links if at all possible. Huge thanks! ♥♥

    • ⚡  No gratuitous use of obscenities: 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 microfiction Ladies Night, which won first prize in the KYSO Flash Triple-F Writing Challenge.

    • ⚡  And last but not at all least: No pornography, although Clare does publish erotica and literary works that contain explicit sexual themes and language. For example, this ekphrastic microfiction in Issue 18 of MacQueen’s Quinterly, by Lorette C. Luzajic (after a painting by Antoine Wiertz, Nude Behind the Curtain): Virgin

      Then there’s this quartet of spicy and seductive poems by Alexis 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).

  13. Manuscript Formatting:

    • ⚡  NOTE: All 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.

    • ⚡  For the most part, cover letters are discouraged—MacQ’s publisher has very little time and energy 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.

    • ⚡  Prose manuscripts should include at least one-inch margins.

    • ⚡  Manuscript pages should be numbered sequentially.

    • ⚡  Please double space book reviews and essays on craft.

    • ⚡  The standard 12-point font Times New Roman is just fine for submissions to MacQ.

      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, forms of concrete poetry), please include a brief note with your submission.


  14. Clare’s shameless ambition? For online visitors’ viewing and reading pleasure, she aims to showcase a few hundred memorable works each year in MacQ. 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. Thanks so much!

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