General Submissions for the Print Journal
Now accepting submissions via Submittable! Submissions close November 1.
General submissions for the print journal will be accepted in 2024 from January 1 to April 1 and August 1 to November 1. Average turnaround time is six months, but we may take longer and ask that you do not query us until a year has passed.
Prose submissions: Manuscripts should be double-spaced, right margins not justified; 1,500–7,000 words. All nonfiction submissions will be automatically considered for publication in MQR Online. All stories accepted for publication will be passed on to a judge as finalists for the $2000 Lawrence Prize. There is no additional fee for the prize beyond submission.
Poetry submissions: Please submit up to 6 poems in one document, not to exceed a total of 12 pages. Poems published in MQR by early career writers (those who have not yet published a full-length collection) will be considered as finalists for our Page Davidson Clayton Prize.
Translations: Please submit translations in the appropriate genre and include biographical information for both the author and translator.
Special Calls
A Special Issue on Migration. Submissions close October 1.
MQR is calling for submissions for a special issue on the theme of migration, with particular interest in texts that record, analyze, re-document/re-interpret, and ruminate on the various aspects of displacement and erasure at the convergence of global instabilities caused by war, economic pressures, political instability, racial/ethnic/religious/gender hostility, and/or climate change.
We are particularly interested in more experimental or innovative writings that subvert and re-contextualize common understanding around themes of documentation, statelessness, migration, and/or asylum/refugee status as it pertains to the lived stories that detail the physical, emotional, and/or psychological consequences of those who are deported, denied: citizenship, permanent resident status, asylum, temporary protected status; and/or those forced to live in severe states of legal uncertainty after arrest such as indefinite detention without recourse for a trial. We are also looking for texts from the lived realities of people (or their descendents) displaced from their native countries such as Palestine, and/or who currently reside in their native country whose borders are the active sites of contestation; this includes indigenous people of the U.S and elsewhere whose land, citizenship, and autonomy has been stolen.
We welcome texts in all genres (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, art, and researched essays). In addition to original, previously unpublished works in all genres, we also welcome collaborative works, translations, and visual works that can be presented in print or digitally on MQR Online.
Guest Editor: Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
The issue will be published in Spring 2025.
Maximum length for articles, essays and works of fiction is 7,000 words.
Poetry submissions must not exceed 10 pages.
If Submittable is not accessible to you, please email mqr@umich.edu with your concern.
Prizes
MQR awards several literary prizes annually. See below for information on prizes with specific submission windows. Click here for more information on the full range of prizes MQR offers.
James A. Winn Prize in Nonfiction
Currently closed. Submissions open April 1.
The Winn Prize is awarded annually to a work of nonfiction of exemplary quality submitted for consideration. One essay submitted for this prize will be awarded $1,500 and publication in MQR. All submissions will be considered for publication.
The 2024 judge is Elizabeth Goodenough.
Elizabeth Goodenough has taught at Harvard, Claremont McKenna, and Sarah Lawrence Colleges as well as at University of Michigan’s Residential College, School of Education, and School of Information. She graduated from Smith College, received an MAT and PhD from Harvard University, and published Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child in Literature (Wayne State Univ. Press, 1994), Secret Spaces of Childhood (U of Michigan Press, 2003) and Under Fire: Childhood in the Shadow of War (Wayne, 2008). Her co-produced, award-winning PBS documentary, Where Do the Children Play? included companion volumes: A Study Guide to the Film (WSUP, 2007) and A Place for Play (National Institute for Play, 2008). Summer 2024 she participates as a U-M Road Scholar. What the Presidents Read: Childhood and Family Favorites, co-edited with Marilynn Olson, will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in Fall 2024.
Laurence Goldstein Prize in Poetry
Currently closed. Submissions open November 1.
The Goldstein Prize is awarded annually to a poem of exemplary quality submitted for consideration. One poem submitted for this prize will be awarded $1,000 and publication in MQR. All submissions for the prize will be considered for publication.
Submission Guidelines. Please submit up to five (5) previously unpublished poems with a total page count of no more than ten (10) pages. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable but please leave us a note to withdraw individual poems if they are accepted elsewhere. We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable, its title, or its file name. Affiliation with the judge, MQR, or the Helen Zell Writers Program may disqualify a submission; please consult the prize details on Submittable for more information about exclusions.
The 2025 judge is Cyrus Cassells.
Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch? (Four Way Books: 2024) is Cyrus Cassells‘s ninth volume. Everything in Life is Resurrection: Selected Poems, 1982-2022 (TCU Press: 2025) and Lorca to the Umpteenth Power (3: A Taos Press: 2026) are forthcoming. Among his honors: a 2019 Guggenheim fellowship and a Lambda Literary Award. His two books of Catalan translations, Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas and To The Cypress Again and Again: Tribute to Salvador Espriu, both received the Texas Institute of Letters’ biennial Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translated Book. The 2021 Poet Laureate of Texas, Cassells is a Regents’ and University Distinguished Professor of English at Texas State University.
Photo credit: Cameron Lartigue
Jesmyn Ward Prize in Fiction
Currently closed. Submissions open November 1.
The Michigan Quarterly Review has established this prize for fiction in honor of Helen Zell Writers’ Program alumna Jesmyn Ward and her significant contributions to the literary arts. One short story submitted for this prize will be awarded $2,000 and publication in MQR. All submissions for the prize will be considered for publication.
Submission Guidelines. Please submit one unpublished short story of 1,500–7,000 words. Simultaneous submissions are welcome but please withdraw your submission as soon as it is accepted elsewhere. We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable, its title, or its file name. Affiliation with the judge, MQR, or the Helen Zell Writers Program may disqualify a submission; please consult the prize details on Submittable for more information about exclusions.
The 2025 judge is Ghassan Zeineddine.
Ghassan Zeineddine is the author of the story collection Dearborn and co-editor of the creative nonfiction anthology Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging. Dearborn was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award for Debut Fiction, shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. The story collection was also awarded the 2023 Khayrallah Book Prize and named a 2024 Michigan Notable Book, a 2024 American Library Association Notable Book, and a Best Fiction Book of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, the Chicago Public Library, Powell’s, and the Writer’s Bone, and a Good Housekeeping Best Book of Fall and a Washington Post Best Book of September, among other honors. Zeineddine lives with his wife and two daughters in Ohio, where he’s an assistant professor of creative writing at Oberlin College.
Photo credit: Austin Thomason, Michigan Photography
Pitch to MQR Online
Our online-only companion to the print journal, MQR Online publishes book reviews, essays, arts and culture features, and author interviews. We are currently accepting pitches for MQR Online features in these genres. Please submit your brief pitch in the body of an email to mqronlinepitches@gmail.com. Our Online Editor will invite selected pitches to submit a full piece (up to 3,000 words) for consideration. Please note that we are unable to respond to all pitches and that we are not currently accepting fiction or poetry submissions for MQR Online; please submit work in these genres for consideration in the print journal via Submittable.
