The entry fee covers one submission of up to 6,000 words. This category is for both domestic and international submissions.

• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. We ask that you notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere. You can message us through Submittable or reach out to us at blackwarriorreview@gmail.com. Include the title of your submission in the subject line. 
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• The winner will receive a cash prize and publication in BWR 51.2, our 2025 Spring/Summer issue. The first runner-up in each genre receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication. 
• The contest is open from May 1st, 2024 to August 1st, 2024. 

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.
• We offer an optional fee waiver for anyone who needs it, which can be requested whenever we are open for submissions by emailing us at feewaiver.bwr@gmail.com. 

Nonfiction Guest Judge: RAJIV MOHABIR 

Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of four books of poetry including Whale Aria (Four Way Books 2023), Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021) which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction have been finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and in Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022 (poetry and memoir respectively). His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets in 2020. He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The entry fee covers one prose submission of up to 6,000 words. This category is for both domestic and international submissions.

• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. We ask that you notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere. You can message us through Submittable or reach out to us at blackwarriorreview@gmail.com. Include the title of your submission in the subject line. 
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• The winner will receive a cash prize and publication in BWR 51.2, our 2025 Spring/Summer issue. The first runner-up in each genre receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication. 
• The contest is open from May 1st, 2024 to August 1st, 2024.
  

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.
• We offer an optional fee waiver for anyone who needs it, which can be requested whenever we are open for submissions by emailing us at feewaiver.bwr@gmail.com.
  

Fiction Guest Judge: CHIGOZIE OBIOMA

Chigozie Obioma was born in Akure, Nigeria. His two novels, The Fishermen (2015) and An Orchestra of Minorities (2019) were shortlisted for The Booker Prize, making him one of only two novelists to be shortlisted for all their works. They have won about a dozen prizes including the FT/Oppenheimer Award for Fiction, an LA Times Book prize, Internationaler Literaturpris, an NAACP Image Award, and have been nominated for many others. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages. The Fishermen was adapted into an award-winning stage play by Gbolahan Obisesan that played in the UK and South Africa between 2018-2019. He was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2015. His work have been published in The Guardian, VQR, Paris Review, New York Times, and elsewhere. He is the James E. Ryan Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and divides his time between the US and Nigeria. 

Submit a packet of up to 5 poems, all in one file (.docx or .PDF preferred). This category is for both domestic and international submissions.

• Cover letters are welcome.
• Please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so make sure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, as are simultaneous submissions. We ask that you notify us immediately if your submission is accepted elsewhere. You can message us through Submittable or reach out to us at blackwarriorreview@gmail.com. Include the title of your submission in the subject line. 
• We accept only previously unpublished work for publication.
• The winner of our Poetry category will receive a cash prize and print publication in BWR 51.2, our 2025 Spring/Summer issue. The first runner-up in each genre (Nonfiction, Poetry, Fiction, and Flash) receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication. 
• The contest is open from May 1st to August 1st. A shortlist of ten pieces will be notified in September of 2024, and we’ll announce the winners & runners-up for each category in October.
   

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.
• We offer an optional fee waiver for anyone who needs it, which can be requested whenever we are open for submissions by emailing us at feewaiver.bwr@gmail.com. 

Poetry Guest Judge: DONIKA KELLY

Donika Kelly is the author of The Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary, the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Kelly’s poetry has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Publishing Triangle Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and longlisted for the National Book Award. A Cave Canem graduate fellow, National Endowment for the Arts fellow, and founding member of the collective Poets at the End of the World, she has also received a Lannan Residency Fellowship, and a summer workshop fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center. She earned an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Donika lives in Iowa City with her wife, the nonfiction writer Melissa Febos, and is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing.

• Submit a packet of up to 2 flash pieces. 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.
• Cover letters are welcome, but please do not include identifying information in your submission document. We will use your Submittable information to contact you, so 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 a cash prize (at least $250) and print publication in BWR 51.2, our Spring/Summer 2025 issue. The first runner-up receives monetary compensation, acknowledgment in the print issue, and online publication (if desired). 
• The contest is open from May 1st, 2024 to August 1st, 2024. A shortlist of ten pieces will be notified in September of 2024, and we’ll announce the winners & runners-up for each category in October.

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.

Flash Guest Judge: INTAN PARAMADITHA

Intan Paramaditha is the author of The Wandering, a novel on the politics of travel in a choose-your-own adventure format, and a feminist horror story collection Apple and Knife. Both were translated from Indonesian to English by Stephen J. Epstein and published by Harvill Secker, Penguin Random House UK. Her new novel, Malam Seribu Jahanam (2023), weaving gothic elements, Islamic stories, and Southeast Asian folktales, was published in Indonesia (English translation in progress). She received a Ph.D from New York University and currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney.

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. This is not a portal to submit your work to BWR. 

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.

Black Warrior Review is seeking submissions of all genres for our eighth edition of Boyfriend Village: More Than One Boyfriend. 

There’s a misconception about writing being a solitary pursuit. Even as a singular author working with a single piece of paper at a desk with only one chair, you have to ask: who provided the ink? How many people were involved in making the desk and the chair? How much history of production, engineering, mathematics, government, and philosophy is behind this single moment? More Than One Boyfriend seeks to correct this misconception by encapsulating the ways in which writing, like everything else, is a communal pursuit.

This might mean work authored by more than one person, yes, but also any work that is informed by more than one practice, more than one medium, more than one language, more than one voice, and more than one piece of art. It means ekphrastic work, erasure, reiteration, and bilingual writing. It means writing in conversation with and incorporating visual art, music, and interactivity; art that moves more than one of the senses. It means intersectional writing from writers with multifaceted backgrounds, whose work speaks to more than one mode of being. Writing that highlights more than one experience, more than one point of view, more than one voice, more than the one perspective we’re used to hearing the story from. Writing about the collaborative spirit; writing that tells the reader that they are more than just one.

More Than One Boyfriend asks for work that is more than itself.

~

This year’s issue is helmed by our first collaborative team of Online Editors, Darby Power & Jaric Sarmiento. 

Submissions are open between April 1st, 2024, and May 1st, 2024. While themed, this is open to interpretation. If you think your boyfriend(s) might belong in our village, don’t hesitate—send them along!

There is one submission category for all genres. We accept fiction, poetry, nonfiction, hybrid, visual and multimedia art, as well as sound collage, video, games, and more. For graphic, audio, and visual work, if Submittable accepts the file type, so will we! Color images are welcome. If submittable doesn’t accept the file type, feel free to email us at onlineeditors.bwr@gmail.com. 

You may use your cover letter to tell us as much or as little about yourself & your work as you like. Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Though we welcome submissions of all forms of art, the following are general guidelines on length: For prose, under 7000 words is preferable. For flash (pieces under 1000 words), you may include up to three pieces. For poetry, five poems or less is ideal. Again, these are just guidelines; they’re here to give you an idea of the typical length we’re willing to accept. For submissions that can’t be measured by word count, just keep in mind how much time is needed to fully engage with the work. We suggest that you look through past issues of Boyfriend Village as a guide on what would be an appropriate length to submit.

AI Statement: Work that has been created in any part with the assistance of AI tools is not eligible for submission or publication.

There is a $3 submission fee. Submission fees are used to compensate contributors. If you need a fee waiver for any reason, please email us at feewaiver.bwr@gmail.com to request one.