We’re open now for fiction, art, translations, poetry reviews, prose reviews, and voices from Palestine and Ukraine. Send work to us on Submittable. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook to find out when we open for various genres.
We currently have open volunteer roles. Please apply via Submittable:
Executive Editor
Nonfiction Editor
Our mission:
We love work that is personal and political and shows that you can write beautifully and incisively about important subjects, whether global or very specifically domestic. We want work that *had* to be written. In 2025 we began a focused interest on abolition and the carceral state.
Genres are below.
Palestinian Voices
We are looking for creative work in all genres by Palestinian writers and artists, including people who are part of the Palestinian diaspora. We seek the immediate and the personal, the concrete and specific. Please feel free to send queries.
Interns
We are closed for internship opportunities at the moment and will reopen for the spring.
Poetry
We are currently closed for poetry.
Nonfiction
We seek memoirs, reported essays, braided essays, collages, vignettes, extremely literary journalism, oral history, meditations, and combinations of the previous. Short, long, medium. Political in the largest sense, though we’re not looking for op-eds. We are closed for submissions now.
Translations
We welcome translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama (including excerpts from novels or from full-length plays). Whenever possible, we also publish the piece in the original language. We need written permission of the writer whose work has been translated.
Reviews and review-essays
We review books published by small and university presses, because the Big Five or so have a relatively easier time getting their books noticed. We welcome reviews of fiction, poetry, and creative and other nonfiction, particularly those using a political/analytical lens to view self, others, and society. Please move beyond synopsis to analysis. In lit reviews, we want to learn about the book’s place in contemporary literature, where it stands in relation to trends, style and tradition. We welcome books that resist and books that question the status quo. And we’re especially interested in reviews of nonfiction trade books that address incarceration and liberation. As for style of review, we’re open to personal essay and experimental reviews, as well as traditional. If you would like to review a specific book, please let us know of your relationship, if any, to the author. Please note that we don’t publish reviews by friends of the author or blurbers or blurbees of same. For all queries, please go to our Submittable link at the bottom of the page. We’re open for both poetry and prose.
Art
We publish art with each work of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and welcome all sorts of media. We also publish portfolios of an artist’s work (including photographers). Please query with a link to your website or attachments. We’re open indefinitely for art.
Fiction
We seek original stories that are preferably under 7,500 words. Please submit no more than one story at a time. In case of simultaneous submissions, let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We charge a small fee to cover our Submittable software. As a form of reparations, we are waiving the fee for BIPOC writers. If this is you, please submit to Fiction–fee waived for BIPOC writers.
We will be open for submissions until Dec 15th or until we hit 300 submissions, whichever happens first.
Forthcoming
We publish excerpts of forthcoming books from indie presses. Send us a chapter or a few poems. We consider work *only* if the publication date is part of the title. We’re closed at the moment.
Audio/Visual
We publish audio/visual pieces of any length. We’re currently closed for A/V.
Interviews
We’re closed for interviews at the moment.
Donations
Another Chicago Magazine is a volunteer-run publication. We are not paid. You are not paid. We are trying to change that with grant applications. If you have a bit to spare, we have a digital tip jar on Submittable.
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We call for theme submissions from time to time. In the second half of 2019 we published pieces on the theme of race/riot/rebellion/revolution in order to commemorate the 1919 Chicago race riot, the 1919 Red Summer, and the 400th anniversary of the introduction of slavery in what became the US. In 2021 we asked for submissions on displacement. Though we no longer have specific submission portals on those themes, we always welcome work that deals with the general subjects of race/riot/rebellion/revolution and displacement.
As writers, we know how hard it is to wait for a response, so we accept simultaneous submissions. We are committed to small presses and express that in our Forthcoming series and in our reviews (though occasionally we will run a review of a book published by a large press). We promote our authors’ work on social media, including their publications and awards after they publish with ACM. We submit work to Best American and Pushcart.
Another Chicago Magazine 