Submit

show us your work

Subscribe

to the publication

ProForma

enter contest

Submit

show us your work

Subscribe

to the publication

ProForma

enter contest

SUBMIT

Submit to Grist Journal

Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, seeks high quality submissions from both emerging and established writers. We publish craft essays and interviews as well as fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—and we want to see your best work, regardless of form, style, or subject matter.

Past issues have included such writers as Dan Albergotti, Dorothy Allison, Ellen Bass, Richard Bausch, Katherine Boo, Maud Casey, May-lee Chai, Peter Ho Davies, Timothy Donnelly, Denise Duhamel, Tom Franklin, Elizabeth Gilbert, Joy Harjo, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Hicok, T.R. Hummer, Adam Johnson, Fady Joudah, Dorianne Laux, Dorothea Lasky, Dana Levin, Julia B. Levine, Lisa Lewis, Thomas Lynch, Khaled Mattawa, Joseph Millar, Ander Monson, Danielle Pafunda, Ron Rash, Hilda Raz, Maggie Smith, Maura Stanton, Michael Steinberg, Virgil Suárez, Julie Marie Wade, William Wenthe, and many others.

We read between May 15th and August 15th. Please note that we do not accept snail mail submissions. Please do not mix genres in the same submission. For each genre, please wait until we have responded to your current submission before submitting another. We do not consider previously published work. We discourage the submission of multiple drafts of the same work during a submission period unless a revision was requested by an editor.  We do not consider work from those currently or recently affiliated with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as we are immediately notified if the piece has been accepted elsewhere. While we can’t always personally respond to each withdrawal or partial withdrawal notice, rest assured that the information has been entered into the system. We’re sorry, but Grist does not accept authors in back-to-back issues.

Grist is committed to diversity, inclusivity, cultural interchange, and respect for all individuals. In the case of all submitted and/or accepted work, if an author behaves or speaks publicly—or is revealed or accused to have behaved or spoken, even in private—in ways that contradict these expressed values of the journal, then we reserve the right to disqualify an author’s submission, release the author from any contract, and/or remove their work from our archives.

Our submission fee (waived for subscribers) is $4 for three to five poems, for one work of fiction up to 7,000 words, or for one work of non-fiction up to 7,000 words (in all of our prose categories, we are also open to considering flash pieces as long as they are submitted in one document and do not total over 7000 words). The bulk of our reading fee goes to paying our writers; the rest covers our Submittable fees and a portion of our publishing costs, which helps us to make a high-quality home for a wide variety of the best national and international creative and literary work available to us. We hope that you will regard this fee as an investment in you, the writers who keep us going, while also serving as a sign of your support for the literary art we all value so much.

Average response time is 2-4 months. If you have not received a response after four months, send a query email to your genre’s editor.

Submissions will be considered for publication in either the print issue or here online. Payment is $10 per poem or 1 cent per word for prose (up to $50), as well as a contributor copy. Additional copies are also available at a reduced price for contributors.

To submit your work to the journal, please read our guidelines below and then submit via our online submissions manager, Submittable. To pitch ideas or submit reviews or craft essays please read our submission guidelines on this page. To submit to our annual ProForma contest, please see our Contest page.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Grist Submission Guidelines
FICTION — Submit one story up to 7,000 words. Times New Roman, size 12 font.

POETRY — Submit 3-5 poems. Times New Roman, size 12 font.

NONFICTION — Submit one essay up to 7,000 words. Times New Roman, size 12 font.

ESSAYS — Submit one craft essay up to 7,000 words. Times New Roman, size 12 font.

REVIEWS — Grist seeks reviews of books published by small and independent presses in the genres of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays on craft, and books about the creative process as it relates to all artistic mediums, including visual art. While most reviews follow the standard model, experimentation with the review form is also welcome, with the understanding that clarity is always a virtue. We focus on small, independent, and university presses because we think there are already plenty of other outlets for books by major publishers. And while we believe that all books deserve serious, critical commentary, we don’t see much value in wasting our time (or our readers’!) on a review of a book we don’t recommend. So: as a reviewer, we want you to be honest, but we also want you to highlight the books you’re excited about, and leave aside the others. We look for approximately 700 words, are happy to request books for you, and will work with you on establishing a timeline that works for you (although we usually ask reviews be completed in 4-8 weeks). If you have an interest in reviewing for Grist, book suggestions, or any questions, please contact our Reviews Editor, Alex Sausa.

GENERAL NOTE — To pitch an idea for a craft essay, review, or other piece you think would be a great fit, please contact our Managing Editor for Online Content, Maggie Hess.

ISSUE 16 GRIST STAFF

Andrew Lee Butler
Editor-in-Chief
Kate Wright 
Poetry Editor
Sam Herschel Wein
Poetry Editor
Sarah Harshbarger
Fiction Editor
Mariah Rigg
Nonfiction Editor
Emily Jalloul
Managing Editor
Maggie Rue Hess
Managing Editor for Online Content
Tara Ross
Reviews Editor

Read Online Content

Issue 16

Dream of a Unified Field

Josh Emmons has published two novels with Scribner and a short story collection with Dzanc Books, plus fiction in ZYZZYVA, Ecotone, Chicago Quarterly Review, Santa Monica Review, West Branch, The American Scholar, Joyland, The New York Times and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.

Read More »
Issue 16

The Judas Tree

Erica Wright is the author of seven books, including the poetry collection All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned (Black Lawrence Press) and the essay collection Snake (Bloomsbury). She was the poetry editor of Guernica for more than a decade.

Read More »
Issue 16

If I Erase My Body

Jennifer Whalen (she/her) is a poet & educator from the Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati, Ohio area. She is the author of the poetry collection Eveningful (2024), which was selected by Rick Barot as the winner of the 2022 Lightscatter Press Prize. Her poems can be found in Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Southern Indiana Review, New South, Glass: A Journal for Poetry, The Boiler, & elsewhere. She previously served as writer-in-residence at Texas State University’s Clark House and currently teaches English at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Read More »
Submit to Grist Journal

Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, seeks high quality submissions from both emerging and established writers. We publish craft essays and interviews as well as fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—and we want to see your best work, regardless of form, style, or subject matter.

Past issues have included such writers as Dan Albergotti, Dorothy Allison, Ellen Bass, Richard Bausch, Katherine Boo, Maud Casey, May-lee Chai, Peter Ho Davies, Timothy Donnelly, Denise Duhamel, Tom Franklin, Elizabeth Gilbert, Joy Harjo, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Hicok, T.R. Hummer, Adam Johnson, Fady Joudah, Dorianne Laux, Dorothea Lasky, Dana Levin, Julia B. Levine, Lisa Lewis, Thomas Lynch, Khaled Mattawa, Joseph Millar, Ander Monson, Danielle Pafunda, Ron Rash, Hilda Raz, Maggie Smith, Maura Stanton, Michael Steinberg, Virgil Suárez, Julie Marie Wade, William Wenthe, and many others.

We read between May 15th and August 15th. Please note that we do not accept snail mail submissions. Please do not mix genres in the same submission. For each genre, please wait until we have responded to your current submission before submitting another. We do not consider previously published work. We discourage the submission of multiple drafts of the same work during a submission period unless a revision was requested by an editor.  We do not consider work from those currently or recently affiliated with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as we are immediately notified if the piece has been accepted elsewhere. While we can’t always personally respond to each withdrawal or partial withdrawal notice, rest assured that the information has been entered into the system. We’re sorry, but Grist does not accept authors in back-to-back issues.

Grist is committed to diversity, inclusivity, cultural interchange, and respect for all individuals. In the case of all submitted and/or accepted work, if an author behaves or speaks publicly—or is revealed or accused to have behaved or spoken, even in private—in ways that contradict these expressed values of the journal, then we reserve the right to disqualify an author’s submission, release the author from any contract, and/or remove their work from our archives.

Our submission fee (waived for subscribers) is $4 for three to five poems, for one work of fiction up to 7,000 words, or for one work of non-fiction up to 7,000 words (in all of our prose categories, we are also open to considering flash pieces as long as they are submitted in one document and do not total over 7000 words). The bulk of our reading fee goes to paying our writers; the rest covers our Submittable fees and a portion of our publishing costs, which helps us to make a high-quality home for a wide variety of the best national and international creative and literary work available to us. We hope that you will regard this fee as an investment in you, the writers who keep us going, while also serving as a sign of your support for the literary art we all value so much.

Average response time is 2-4 months. If you have not received a response after four months, send a query email to your genre’s editor.

Submissions will be considered for publication in either the print issue or here online. Payment is $10 per poem or 1 cent per word for prose (up to $50), as well as a contributor copy. Additional copies are also available at a reduced price for contributors.

To submit your work to the journal, please read our guidelines below and then submit via our online submissions manager, Submittable. To pitch ideas or submit reviews or craft essays please read our submission guidelines on this page. To submit to our annual ProForma contest, please see our Contest page.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Grist Submission Guidelines
FICTION — Submit one story up to 7,000 words. Times New Roman, size 12 font.
POETRY — Submit 3-5 poems. Times New Roman, size 12 font.
NONFICTION — Submit one essay up to 7,000 words. Times New Roman, size 12 font.
ESSAYS — Submit one craft essay up to 7,000 words. Times New Roman, size 12 font.
REVIEWS — Grist seeks reviews of books published by small and independent presses in the genres of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays on craft, and books about the creative process as it relates to all artistic mediums, including visual art. While most reviews follow the standard model, experimentation with the review form is also welcome, with the understanding that clarity is always a virtue. We focus on small, independent, and university presses because we think there are already plenty of other outlets for books by major publishers. And while we believe that all books deserve serious, critical commentary, we don’t see much value in wasting our time (or our readers’!) on a review of a book we don’t recommend. So: as a reviewer, we want you to be honest, but we also want you to highlight the books you’re excited about, and leave aside the others. We look for approximately 700 words, are happy to request books for you, and will work with you on establishing a timeline that works for you (although we usually ask reviews be completed in 4-8 weeks). If you have an interest in reviewing for Grist, book suggestions, or any questions, please contact our Reviews Editor, Sarah Yancy.
GENERAL NOTE — To pitch an idea for a craft essay, review, or other piece you think would be a great fit, please contact our Managing Editor for Online Content, Elizabeth Cooley.

GRIST STAFF

Emily Jalloul
Editor-in-Chief
Elysia Mann
Art & Design Editor
Jeffrey Amos
Fiction Editor
Jacque Scott
Nonfiction Editor
Ashley Dailey
Poetry Editor
Andrew Butler
Poetry Editor
Marisa Stickel
Managing Editor
Bess Cooley
Managing Editor, Online Content
Sarah Yancey
Reviews Editor
Katie Haire
Social Media Editor
Rachel Harper
Events & Promotions Coordinator