General Guidelines for the Print Journal
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.
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please notify us immediately via Submittable if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
- Please do not submit previously published work, including work published on a personal website or blog.
- Writers are advised to inspect a back copy of the journal before submitting work.
- Previous contributors: please wait one year after your work appears in the journal to submit to us again.
- We ask that you do not contact us about revising your work once it has been submitted.
- MQR is a paying market.
Genre Specifications
Prose submissions: Manuscripts should be double-spaced, right margins not justified; maximum 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.
MQR Online: Our online-only companion to the print journal, MQR Online publishes book reviews, arts and culture features, author interviews, and more. We are currently accepting pitches for MQR Online features in these genres and are happy to consider pitches in other genres as well. 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.
Special Issues
Each Spring and Fall issue of MQR is a special themed issue. Work submitted for a special issue should be related in some way to its theme. We always accept fiction, poetry, and nonfiction for special issues; other genres are often accepted as well. Themes, guidelines, and instructions for submitting to a special issue will appear below whenever we are actively seeking submissions for an upcoming special issue.
Jesmyn Ward Prize in Fiction
Open for Submissions Nov. 1–Dec. 31 annually. 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. The fee for submission is $25. When submissions for the prize are open, you can find details on how to submit by clicking the link below.
James A. Winn Prize in Nonfiction
Open for Submissions Apr. 1–May 31 annually. The James A. Winn Prize is awarded annually to a piece of nonfiction of exemplary quality submitted for consideration. One nonfiction piece submitted for this prize will be awarded $1,500 and publication in MQR. All submissions will be considered for publication. The fee for submission is $20. When submissions for the prize are open, you can find details on how to submit by clicking the link below.
Goldstein Prize in Poetry
Open for Submissions Nov. 1–Dec. 31 annually. 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 will be considered for publication. The fee for submission is $20. When submissions for the prize are open, you can find details on how to submit by clicking the link below.
MQR Mixtape
MQR Mixtape is MQR's eclectic, online zine. Each issue centers on a theme chosen by a guest editor. Open calls for upcoming issues of MQR Mixtape including submission guidelines will appear below.
Edited by Malia Maxwell
In Ar:range:ments, Esther Kondo Heller writes, “mama what should I call you now that you are gone? / froth: spirit : marrow : wind”. While elegy soundly fits in the realm of “haunting” literature, Kondo Heller’s coloned list enacts another kind of haunting. The speaker cycles through names without landing on an answer, returning to the void at the site of their question. Indeed, Oxford English Dictionary’s many definitions of “haunt” include “To resort to frequently or habitually; to frequent or be much about (a place).” Haunting has as much to do with ghosts and states of unease—consider authors like Carmen Maria Machado and Jane Wong for luminous examples—as it does with habit.
For this issue of MQR Mixtape, I am seeking poems, essays, short fiction, and visual art that engage with the spectrum (and spectralities) of “haunting.” Give me ghost stories and habits broadly understood or work that engages specific traditions of haunting such as the apparitional lesbian or the haunted anthropocene. Give me metapoetic work that dis/engages formal traditions. Haunt me. For this issue, I am as much interested in haunted genres or subjects as I am in work that resists or enacts haunting on a formal level.
Poetry: up to three poems
Prose*: up to 3,000 words
*short stories, flash fiction, non-fiction essays
Visual art/photography: up to five works
Hybrid work**: up to five pages
**multimedia work, comics, collaborations (within and across disciplines), archival materials, love letters, etc. Surprise me!
Only previously unpublished work will be considered. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted by another publication. Please send only one submission per window; subsequent submissions will be rejected automatically.
Submission Deadline: June 1, 2025
The James A. Winn Prize will be awarded annually by the Michigan Quarterly Review to one nonfiction piece submitted for consideration.
The Michigan Quarterly Review established this prize in 2023 in honor of former English professor and inaugural director of the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, James A. Winn.
Please submit one unpublished piece of nonfiction 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.
Preliminary judges for the prize will be the Helen Zell Writers’ Program students at University of Michigan who currently review submissions on behalf of the journal.
Submissions will go through two rounds of consideration before ten (10) finalists are passed on to the judge.
Current faculty and students as well as recent graduates (in the past three years) of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program will be barred from submitting. Close friends, relatives, and current and former students (in the past three years) of the Judge will be barred from submitting.
MQR’s staff and editorial board, as well as their immediate family members, are also excluded from the contest.
The 2025 Judge will be Elizabeth Goodenough. The winning story will be published in the Winter issue of the following year.
The prize will be in the amount of $1,500 and publication. All submissions will be considered for publication in MQR.
Submissions to the James A. Winn Prize include a one-year digital subscription for four issues of MQR beginning with the Summer 2025 issue.