“Two aesthetics exist: the passive aesthetic of mirrors and the active aesthetic of prisms. Guided by the former, art turns into a copy of the environment’s objectivity or the individual’s psychic history. Guided by the latter, art is redeemed, makes the world into its instrument, and forges—beyond spatial and temporal prisons—a personal vision.”–ULTRA MANIFESTO [1921]

We want work that familiarizes the strange and mystifies the familiar. We are interested in reading anything that you wouldn’t—or couldn’t—send elsewhere, because you don’t feel like it fully fits anywhere.

We’ll read short (and long) stories of 7,000 words or fewer. Submit one piece at a time. If you are a Black, Indigenous, or incarcerated writer, you may email your submission to fiction.bwr@gmail.com for no fee. Please include a short cover letter and bio.

BWR seeks to publish poems that are:

1. Experimental in form, creation process, content, and/or reading method 🧪

2. Representative of non-traditional voices and contemporary issues ❤️

3. Impressive in their wholeness, but also in their minutiae 🤩

We'd also love to see more poems that portray nuanced forms of comedy or spirituality, although this is not required.

Submit up to 5 poems with a maximum of 10 pages in one document. In the “Submission Title” field, list all titles separated by commas. Please include a short cover letter and bio (more personal than professional bio preferred).

If you are a Black, Indigenous, or incarcerated writer, you may email your submission to poetry.bwr@gmail.com for no fee.

We at the Nonfiction desk are always hungry for the transgressive, for works that question the boundaries of form, of language, of content. We are on the lookout for essays that make us rethink our perspectives on life, on art, on the very definition of the essay itself as an art form. Surprise us.

We are very open to submissions from writers of all races, nationalities, cultures, sexual orientations, and classes; that said, we are especially welcoming of works from writers who identify as BIPOC, queer, disabled  and/or of non-Western descent.

If you are a Black, Indigenous, or incarcerated writer, you may email your submission to nonfiction.bwr@gmail.com for no fee. Be sure to include a bio statement (in third-person, up to 100 words) and a short cover letter.

Please submit works no longer than 7,000 words in a single Word doc. While we love to read submissions from all over, we do have limited bandwidth; to ensure we can give your work the full attention it deserves, please do not send us more than one work for consideration at a time.We at the Nonfiction desk are always hungry for the transgressive, for works that question the boundaries of form, of language, of content. We are on the lookout for essays that make us rethink our perspectives on life, on art, on the very definition of the essay itself as an art form. Do you have work that's too beautifully unorthodox for anywhere else? Let us take a look at it.

We are very open to submissions from writers of all races, nationalities, cultures, sexual orientations, and classes; that said, we are especially welcoming of works from writers who identify as BIPOC, queer, disabled  and/or of non-Western descent.

Please submit works no longer than 7,000 words in a single Word doc via Submittable. If you are a Black, Indigenous, or incarcerated writer, you may skip the Submittable process and email your submission directly to the editor at nonfiction.bwr@gmail.com for no fee. Be sure to include a bio statement (in third-person, up to 100 words) and a short cover letter. In the Subject field, please write the following "BWR Submission - [Title of Piece]."

While we love to read submissions from all over, we do have limited bandwidth; to ensure we can give your work the full attention it deserves, please do not send us more than one work for consideration at a time. Our editor and readers want to offer a home to every brilliant work that comes through our editorial gates, but the space is finite and our most recent reading period led to a 3.5 percent acceptance rate. So, please note that a rejection is not a personal attack on your craft; it is likely a consequence of this game of numbers called submission.

Black Warrior Review exists in part because of your continued and generous support. Your donations here are applied directly to our endowment, which supports contributor and artist payments.

Please note that a donation through this portal will not be tax deductible. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to BWR, please visit this link. For submitting work to BWR, please see our other forms.

To show our gratitude for your gift at the patron ($50) and guarantor ($100+) levels, you will receive a one-year subscription and recognition in upcoming issues of BWR.

The entry fee covers one 7,000 word prose submission.

• Submit up to 7,000 words.
• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receive monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Nonfiction Guest Judge: Jesse McCarthy is Assistant Professor in the departments of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of the essay collection, Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? winner of the 2022 Whiting Award for Nonfiction, and a novel, The Fugitivities.

The entry fee covers one 7,000 word prose submission.

• Submit up to 7,000 words.
• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receive monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Nonfiction Guest Judge: Jesse McCarthy is Assistant Professor in the departments of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of the essay collection, Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? winner of the 2022 Whiting Award for Nonfiction, and a novel, The Fugitivities.

Submit a packet of up to 3 poems. All in one file.

• Cover letters are welcome
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Poetry Guest Judge: Gary Soto, born and raised in Fresno, California, is the author of thirteen poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award. His prose titles include Living Up the Street, A Summer Life, Jesse, Buried Onions, and The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy. He has written for the stage, including the libretto Nerdlandia, the musical In and Out of Shadows, and the one-act The Afterlife. He is the author of “Oranges,” the most anthologized poem in contemporary literature. He lives in Berkeley, California. 

Submit a packet of up to 3 poems. All in one file.

• Cover letters are welcome
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Poetry Guest Judge: Gary Soto, born and raised in Fresno, California, is the author of thirteen poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award. His prose titles include Living Up the Street, A Summer Life, Jesse, Buried Onions, and The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy. He has written for the stage, including the libretto Nerdlandia, the musical In and Out of Shadows, and the one-act The Afterlife. He is the author of “Oranges,” the most anthologized poem in contemporary literature. He lives in Berkeley, Californi

The entry fee covers one 7,000 word prose submission.  

• Submit up to 7,000 words.
• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Fiction Guest Judge: Michael Martone’s newest books are Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana (2022) and The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne (2020). He has authored or edited over two dozen editions including recent books The Moon Over Wapakoneta (2018); Brooding (2018); Memoranda (2015);Winesburg, Indiana; and Double-wide (2007), his collected early stories.

Michael Martone (2005) is his memoir in contributor’s notes like this one. 

The Flatness and Other Landscapes won the AWP Award for Nonfiction, in 2000. 

His stories and essays have appeared in over 100 magazines and journals and have been featured or cited in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize.

Martone was born and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  He attended Butler University, IPFW, and graduated from Indiana University.  He holds the MA from The Writing Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University.

Martone won two Fellowships from the NEA and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. In 2013 he received the national Indiana Authors Award, in 2016, the Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contribution to Midwestern Literature, and in the spring of 2023 was awarded the Truman Capote Award by the Monroeville Literary Festival.

Michael Martone retired as Professor at the University of Alabama, having taught creative writing classes there since 1996.  He taught creative writing for 40 years, also teaching at Iowa State, Harvard, Syracuse Universities and Warren Wilson College.  

He lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife, the poet Theresa Pappas.

Submit up to 7,000 words.

• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Fiction Guest Judge: Michael Martone’s newest books are Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana (2022) and The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne (2020). He has authored or edited over two dozen editions including recent books The Moon Over Wapakoneta (2018); Brooding (2018); Memoranda (2015);Winesburg, Indiana; and Double-wide (2007), his collected early stories.

Michael Martone (2005) is his memoir in contributor’s notes like this one. 

The Flatness and Other Landscapes won the AWP Award for Nonfiction, in 2000. 

His stories and essays have appeared in over 100 magazines and journals and have been featured or cited in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize.

Martone was born and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  He attended Butler University, IPFW, and graduated from Indiana University.  He holds the MA from The Writing Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University.

Martone won two Fellowships from the NEA and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. In 2013 he received the national Indiana Authors Award, in 2016, the Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contribution to Midwestern Literature, and in the spring of 2023 was awarded the Truman Capote Award by the Monroeville Literary Festival.

Michael Martone retired as Professor at the University of Alabama, having taught creative writing classes there since 1996.  He taught creative writing for 40 years, also teaching at Iowa State, Harvard, Syracuse Universities and Warren Wilson College.  

He lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife, the poet Theresa Pappas

The entry fee covers a packet of up to three flash pieces in any genre.

• Submit a packet of up to 3 flash pieces all in one file. This can be in any genre, as long as the author considers it “flash.” We encourage experimental, hybrid, and lyrical submissions in this category. Image + text work is also welcomed. Surprise us. Word count is at the discretion of the submitter.
• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• The winner in Flash receives $500 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open May 1 – September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Flash Contest Judge: Allegra Hyde is the author of the speculative story collection THE LAST CATASTROPHE, as well the novel ELEUTHERIA, which was named a “Best Book of 2022” by The New Yorker. Her first book, the story collection OF THIS NEW WORLD, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Hyde is also the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, and her work has been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions.Hyde has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Elizabeth George Foundation, the Lucas Artist Residency Program, the Jentel Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and elsewhere. For more information, visit www.allegrahyde.com. 

This portal is for Black and Indigenous submitters to the 2023 BWR contest only.

We will receive submissions until we meet our cap. We are currently able to make 300 submissions available.  

• Submit a packet of up to 3 poems, a packet of up to 3 flash pieces, or up to 7,000 words of fiction or nonfiction. Please stick to one genre per submission. Please submit multiple pieces in one file.
• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so please make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere.
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• Winners in Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry genre receive $1,000 and publication in BWR 50.2, our Spring 2024 issue. The first runner-up in each genre receive monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). We may consider any submission for general publication.
• The contest is open until September 1st. Winners will be announced in October.

Fiction Guest Judge: Michael Martone’s newest books are Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana (2022) and The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne (2020). He has authored or edited over two dozen editions including recent books The Moon Over Wapakoneta (2018); Brooding (2018); Memoranda (2015);Winesburg, Indiana; and Double-wide (2007), his collected early stories.

Michael Martone (2005) is his memoir in contributor’s notes like this one. 

The Flatness and Other Landscapes won the AWP Award for Nonfiction, in 2000. 

His stories and essays have appeared in over 100 magazines and journals and have been featured or cited in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize.

Martone was born and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  He attended Butler University, IPFW, and graduated from Indiana University.  He holds the MA from The Writing Seminars of The Johns Hopkins University.

Martone won two Fellowships from the NEA and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. In 2013 he received the national Indiana Authors Award, in 2016, the Mark Twain Award for Distinguished Contribution to Midwestern Literature, and in the spring of 2023 was awarded the Truman Capote Award by the Monroeville Literary Festival.

Michael Martone retired as Professor at the University of Alabama, having taught creative writing classes there since 1996.  He taught creative writing for 40 years, also teaching at Iowa State, Harvard, Syracuse Universities and Warren Wilson College.  

He lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife, the poet Theresa Pappas

Flash Guest Judge: Allegra Hyde is the author of the speculative story collection THE LAST CATASTROPHE, as well the novel ELEUTHERIA, which was named a “Best Book of 2022” by The New Yorker. Her first book, the story collection OF THIS NEW WORLD, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Hyde is also the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, and her work has been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions.Hyde has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Elizabeth George Foundation, the Lucas Artist Residency Program, the Jentel Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, and elsewhere. For more information, visit www.allegrahyde.com. 

Nonfiction Guest Judge: Jesse McCarthy is Assistant Professor in the departments of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of the essay collection, Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? winner of the 2022 Whiting Award for Nonfiction, and a novel, The Fugitivities.

Poetry Guest Judge: Gary Soto, born and raised in Fresno, California, is the author of thirteen poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award. His prose titles include Living Up the Street, A Summer Life, Jesse, Buried Onions, and The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy. He has written for the stage, including the librettoNerdlandia, the musicalI n and Out of Shadows, and the one-act The Afterlife. He is the author of “Oranges,” the most anthologized poem in contemporary literature. He lives in Berkeley, California.