General Guidelines for the Print Journal
General submissions for the print journal will be accepted in 2023 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.
Ten years ago, MQR released an issue devoted to translation, and MQR is at it again, seeking translations. In his introduction to that issue, Jonathan Freedman writes that translation, for the general public, exists as “a secondary act, an art whose product is noticeable only when it is flawed or deficient.” Jonathan contends that this prejudice is contrary to the significant role translation plays in connecting us and increasing our knowledge of the world. Translation, he adds, “is an inevitable concomitant of human communication, indeed, in the broadest sense, of human experience itself.” Indeed, in an increasingly fractured world, we at MQR have decided to assemble a special issue devoted to translation, to celebrate and contemplate this most essential and most generous of all literary practices.
This issue aims to: provide new translators a platform to showcase their work; seek and entice translations from languages and regions that are rarely heard from and whose experiences and viewpoints are muffled or ignored by the literary market and larger culture; and encourage the production of new translations of new talents from across the globe, as well re-translations of known literary works that require reiteration and recontextualization.
We are also aware that translation is more than an interlingual activity; it is also an intercultural and intersubjective one. We know that it is not a field limited to literary translation, or even to human translators. In addition to fiction, poetry, and memoir, we are also seeking scholarly articles, essays, reviews, and interviews about all facets of translation, from its history to its politics and uneven power relations, as well as the varied places and spheres where it takes place, from literary publications to machine translations, spyware, and even torture chambers.
While we are asking that all works submitted to the issue be in English, we are keenly interested in learning about the history and current tensions, dialogues, and practices among non-European languages. Translation indeed pervades all facets of human existence, and much of that occurs beyond the limited scope of English and Western media and scholarship. Such perspectives will enrich our sense of how the world communicates beyond our insular spheres and outside the realms of privilege in which we operate.
This issue will be published in October of 2024. Please limit prose pieces to 5,000 words and poetry submissions to six (6) poems. All work should be formatted such that it can be printed on 6” x 9” pages. All material submitted will be considered simultaneously for publication in MQR Online.
Edited by Sahara Sidi
"We are dismissed as emotional. It is enough to make you emotional."
—Sara Ahmed
Many scholars and artists have remarked on the importance of anger in art and everyday life. In her 1981 keynote presentation to the National Women’s Studies Conference, Audre Lorde delivered the indicting line “anger is loaded with information and energy,” reminding us that such anger should not be considered a source of shame, but evidence of the injustices that “brought that anger into being.”
This issue seeks to hold space for the “ugly feelings” we are often told to tame, to clean up, and to quiet: our rage, our annoyance, our frustration. We aim to honor the wisdom of unruly emotions. We understand that feelings cannot be boxed and separated from one another, and we acknowledge the muddling of it all. Rage with a side of grief? Anger with a dash of paranoia? Vexed yet anxious? We get it. Rage comes in different forms, tempos, and decibels and we want to amplify it!
For this issue, we are looking for pieces that seek to express the complexities of such a charged emotion. We welcome expressions, critiques, and meditations on rage in a variety of forms: poems, visual art, essays, comics, short films, and short fiction. We encourage perspectives that contextualize the social, cultural, and political realities of anger. Who is allowed to express their anger? How, and when, is rage a symptom of our social conditions and dispositions? What forces attempt to stifle such a resistance? We are looking for work that seeks to reorient our understanding of emotions and their function in “polite” society.
For this issue, please submit:
Prose: up to 4, 000 words
Poetry: up to four poems
Visual art/photography: up to five works (if 3D, please provide multiple angles/references)
Short films: no longer than 20 minutes
Hybrid forms such as multi-media works, comics, collaborations, erasure/black-out/found poems, collages, and much more are welcome.
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.
The deadline for submissions is April 22, 2024.
Manuscripts should be double-spaced, right margins not justified; 1,500-7,000 words.
MQR does not accept previously published pieces.
MQR welcomes translated fiction.
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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.
Please submit up to 6 poems in one document, not to exceed a total of 12 pages.
MQR does not accept previously published pieces.
MQR welcomes submissions of translated poetry.
Simultaneous submissions welcome. Please send a message through Submittable's system when an individual poem is accepted elsewhere.
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Poems by emerging poets who have yet to publish a book of poetry are considered for the $500 Page Davidson Clayton Prize for Emerging Poets. All poems by poets who meet these criteria that are selected for publication are considered finalists for the prize and passed on to the judge.
Manuscripts should be double-spaced. 1,500 words minimum–7,000 maximum.
Nonfiction submissions regularly published in MQR include but are not limited to: cultural criticism, academic articles, personal essays, and hybrid forms.
MQR does not accept previously published pieces.
All essays will also be considered for publication online.
We do not currently accept reviews and interviews via Submittable. Pitches for reviews and interviews, which are published only in MQR Online, should be emailed to mqronlinepitches@gmail.com.