Submissions for Constellations v.14 will run from March 15 through September 10, 2024.
- Please include a simple cover letter that includes a postal mailing address (and phone number for shipping purposes only), so that we know where to send your contributor’s copy should your work be accepted. Tell us a little about yourself, and mention what connection (if any) you have to the Cambridge or Boston area. We have a special interest in Cambridge/Boston writers, but all writers are welcome and encouraged to submit.
- Your cover letter should also include a short bio—no more than 125 words, and please don’t list more than three journals and three books as previous work. Choose the publications that tell people the most about you. The bio should be third-person and list your name exactly as you’d like it to appear in print.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but let us know in your cover letter, and inform us at once if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- We do not accept work previously published in print or on the Internet. (That includes personal blogs, but does NOT include work you’ve posted to password-protected sites for sharing with a group of friends or fellow writers. Improving your work-in-progress by soliciting feedback from a select group of readers is always a good thing, but if your work is publicly available to anyone with a browser, we consider it “published.”)
- Payment at this time is one copy of the issue of Constellations in which your work appears.
- Response time: as soon as we can. Please do not submit again until you've heard from us about your last submission, and limit submissions to two in any single reading period.
- Theme: in addition to general unthemed content, Volume 14 will include a selection of material related to SECOND LOOK. If you have material that you feel is especially well-suited to this topic, please send it in! Wildly varying interpretations are welcome.
- In general, we won’t publish material that’s derogatory, nasty, or poorly-written.
Please limit each submission to a single genre.
We read poetry of any form and content, but please familiarize yourself with our aesthetic first, either by reading an issue of the journal or at least by looking at the sample work on our web site. Submitting poetry that is clearly not our style simply wastes your time and ours.
Please submit ONE FILE containing all of the poems you are submitting:
• If your poems rely on specific formatting on the page, sending a PDF is the surest way to preserve that formatting for us to see. Note that Constellations is printed on pages that are 6 inches wide, so long poem lines may be wrapped.
• The first page of your file should be a simple cover letter which includes a postal mailing address (with phone number for shipping purposes only), so that we know where to send your contributor's copy should your work be accepted.
• Please also include a short bio—no more than 125 words, and please don't list more than three journals and three books as previous work. Choose the publications that tell people the most about you. The bio should be third-person and list your name exactly as you'd like it to appear in print.
• Please note that our theme for issue #14 is SECOND LOOK, though we are also considering work that does not address that theme.
We consider short fiction on any subject; however, while we don't expressly forbid any particular genre of fiction, we are not a genre publication, so mystery, horror, sci-fi, etc. will usually not fit our aesthetic unless it offers something special and unusual. Please familiarize yourself with our aesthetic first, either by reading an issue of the journal or at least by looking at the sample work on our web site. Submitting fiction that is clearly not our style simply wastes your time and ours.
While we don't specify a length limit, generally speaking, the longer the piece is, the better it will have to be to justify its inclusion. The longest story published in issue #2 was about 2500 words long.
Please submit ONE STORY in a single file:
• The first page of your file should be a simple cover letter which includes a postal mailing address (with phone number for shipping purposes only), so that we know where to send your contributor's copy should your work be accepted.
• Please also include a short bio—no more than 125 words, and please don't list more than three journals and three books as previous work. Choose the publications that tell people the most about you. The bio should be third-person and list your name exactly as you'd like it to appear in print.
• Please note that our theme for issue #14 is SECOND LOOK, though we are also considering work that does not address that theme.
Constellations would like to see your black and white art, preferably line art most suitable for duplication in black and white print in a 5"x8" portrait-oriented space. (Landscape-oriented art may have to be cropped to preserve detail.) Black and white photography that will reproduce well at that size is also welcome. At this time we are not considering color photography or art for the cover, but that may change in future.
It's okay to submit lower-resolution art for consideration, provided you can send us 300 dpi images at 5"x8" should we accept your work.
IF YOU ARE SUBMITTING MORE THAN ONE IMAGE, PLEASE COMBINE THEM INTO A SINGLE ZIP ARCHIVE BEFORE SUBMITTING. You will only be able to submit a single file.
Please include a short (125 words or fewer) bio in the comments, written in the third-person, with your name given exactly as you'd like it to appear in print.
Please note that our theme for issue #14 is SECOND LOOK, though we are also considering work that does not address that theme.