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 October 1-November 30 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 October 1-November 30 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.
Liminality
Edited by Jennifer Nessel
In his poem, “The Hollow Men,” T. S. Eliot writes, “Between the idea / and the reality / between the motion / and the act / falls the shadow.” For this issue of MQR Mixtape, I am seeking poems, essays, short fiction, and visual art that exist somewhere in the “shadow.” This can be a threshold between life and death, the self and society, the known and unknown, or the spoken and withheld. This theme welcomes the uncanny, the nostalgic, the collective, and the ambiguous. I am particularly interested in surrealist elements, but I am also open to the metaphoric and historic "transitions" between regimes and policies. What does it mean to create art in a time of social, political, and environmental upheaval? How might we return to spaces previously (mis)understood? What do we ask of art, and what happens when it refuses to answer our questions? Send your absurdist fiction about an absurd reality, erasures about erasure, art about discord. Send work that challenges formal boundaries and/or the concept of borders. Send the work you create in the shadow between idea and motion.
For this particular issue, please submit:
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 three pages
**multimedia work, comics, collaborations (within and across disciplines), archival materials, love letters
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 February 1, 2026.
General submissions for the print journal will be accepted in 2026 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.
Upon publication, MQR takes a nonexclusive license to publish work in print and online in perpetuity, and requests that MQR is formally acknowledged as the first publisher in any reprints.