The average response time for submissions is between 1 and 6 months. If you have not received a response after 6 months, please check on the status of your submission in Submittable. If you encounter any problems, email us at blackwarriorreview@gmail.com
We do not consider previously published work.
Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please tell us if it is a simultaneous submission, and notify us immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere.
Please do not mix genres in the same submission. Our online issue is currently an exception to this rule.
Past contributors and contest winners, please wait three years from the date of your publication to resubmit work.
Past contributors and contest winners to the print journal may submit after waiting only one year to the online journal. Past contributors to the online journal should also wait a year before submitting to the print journal. We view these journals as separate creatures, having meaningful conversations late into the night.
You may submit to both the online and the print journal.
Students, faculty, staff, and administrators currently or formerly (within four years) affiliated with the University of Alabama are ineligible for consideration or publication.
We especially strive to magnify voices that are traditionally and systemically silenced. Writers of color, queer and trans writers, disabled writers, immigrant writers, fat writers and femmes: you are welcome and wanted here.
We offer a limited number of fee waivers for writers whom the submission fee would present financial hardship, and we offer free submissions for incarcerated writers. Please email feewaiver.bwr@gmail.com to request a fee waiver.
We encourage you to read Black Warrior Review before submitting. Sample issues are available for $15; one-year subscriptions for $25.
We are excited to announce our first ever Experimental Forms Contest judged by Marwa Helal.
For our inaugural Experimental Forms contest, we want your speculative essays, visual lyrics, stories that no longer resemble stories. Genre is only as useful as it facilitates a draft, so who cares what you call it.
We want pieces that break down conventions of writing while breaking down conventions of society. We want your work that unlearns colonial and ableist rules of literary convention. and teaches us liberation.
Winning entries will be published online, so send your formal weirdness that cannot be published in print: photos, color, multimedia writing wonders, and more.
Submission Guidelines:
- All submissions must be unpublished (online or print). Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please notify us if accepted elsewhere.
- The winner will receive a cash prize of $300, online publication in the BWR website, and notation in issue 52.2.
- The runner-up will receive $100, online publication, and notation in issue 52.2.
- Finalists will receive notation in issue 52.2 and are considered for general publication.
- The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2025.
Additional Information:
- We welcome international submissions.
- Our commitment to diversity is reflected in both the writers we support and the stories we publish.
- AI-generated work is not accepted.
Guest Judge: Marwa Helal
Marwa Helal is a poet and journalist. She is the author ofAnte body(Nightboat Books, 2022), which was a finalist for theLos Angeles TimesBookPrize,Invasive species(Nightboat Books, 2019), the chapbookI am Made to Leave I am Made to Return (No Dear, 2017) and aBelladonnachaplet (2021). She has been awarded fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the Hawthornden Foundation, New York Foundation of the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Poets House, and Cave Canem, among others.
Helal is the winner ofBOMB Magazine’sBiennial 2016 Poetry Contest, selected by Bhanu Kapil. Her work has appeared in numerous publications includingThe Paris Review,POETRY Magazine,Boston Review, andBest American Experimental Writing2018. She has presented her work at theMuseum of Modern Art(MoMA), theStudio Museumin Harlem,Brooklyn Museumand the Guggenheim Museum.
Born in Al Mansurah, Egypt, she currently lives in the United States. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School and her BA in journalism and international studies from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Black Warrior Review is deeply grateful for your generosity. Donations help sustain our magazine and support our contributors and artists. Please note:
- Donations made through this portal are not tax-deductible.
- To make a tax-deductible donation, you can contact the Office of Student Media when they reopen in mid-January 2025.
This portal is for donations only. To submit work to BWR, please visit our submissions page.
Thank you for supporting BWR and our literary community!