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General submissions are currently OPEN until May 1.

Submit Your Work Via Submittable

Prairie Schooner publishes short stories, poems, imaginative essays of general interest, and reviews of current books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. We read submissions from September 1st to May 1st of each year. All submissions should be typed, and all prose should be double-spaced. Use standard fonts and formatting, including margins of at least one inch, and include your name on each page of the manuscript. We do not consider work that has been previously published anywhere, including online publications, and we do not read simultaneous submissions.

For poetry, send a selection of 5-7 poems contained within a single document. For fiction, essays, and reviews, send only one selection at a time (though book reviews may consider two or three books in conversation). All unsolicited manuscripts must be submitted through Submittable or regular mail in hard copy; e-mailed manuscripts will not be read. Please allow 3-4 months for a reply.

We prefer electronic submissions via Submittable, but we also accept hard copy submissions. Hard copy submissions should follow the above guidelines, and should be printed single-sided. A self-addressed, stamped envelope, must accompany the submission, which may be sent to the attention of the editor at:

Prairie Schooner
110 Andrews Hall
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68588-0334

We encourage you to read Prairie Schooner before you submit. Why not subscribe? Or, consider purchasing back issues or the current issue.

Authors whose work is accepted for publication grant Prairie Schooner first North American serial rights, and in return, contributors receive three copies each of the issue in which their work appears, in token payment.

Prairie Schooner Book Prize Contest:

For information on submitting a book-length manuscript to our Book Series competition, which runs January 15th to March 15th each year, please click here.

Annual Prairie Schooner Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest:

Each year from May 15th to August 1st, Prairie Schooner accepts submissions to the Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest, open to all types of creative nonfiction essays, up to 5,000 words. The entry fee is $20. Winner receives $1,000 and publication in the following Spring issue.

More information about submissions here.