Deadline: April 30th, 2025
Payment: Contributor’s copy
Theme: The YA stories you wish you had as a kid with someone like you as the protagonist
Note: This anthology is looking for diverse characters. All genres are welcome, though I suspect Fantasy and SciFi will be an easier sell than horror or anything dark

Submissions open March 15 for the first Promised Protagonists anthology!

This collection of diverse fiction, poetry, and art will be published in print (paperback and potentially hardcover), as well as in ebook format, in the second half of 2025.

Submissions will be open from March 15 to April 30. The Google Form for submissions will appear below once the window opens.

Unlike our usual submission periods, we will NOT be offering detailed feedback on all anthology submissions due to the expected volume! Particularly for submissions that reach the final rounds of consideration, we may give a few lines of feedback; if you aren’t interested, let us know in the form’s comment box.

Overall Guidelines

We want the stories you wish you had as a kid! Send us your quirky short fiction, your thoughtful fantasy, or anything that shows that you—yes, you!—can be the protagonist in your own story.

We want diverse characters and diverse stories, the perspectives that are too often left out of the general narrative, and pieces that remind young readers that they deserve to take up space and have their own adventures.

To get a better sense of the sort of work we’ve published in the past, check out Promised Protagonists Issue 1, Issue 2, and Issue 3 (linked here).

Don’t self-reject—if in doubt, submit! We want to see your work, and it won’t get published if it never leaves your computer.

Although these guidelines mostly refer to writing or stories, we have the same tastes in poetry and art!

We’re particularly interested in…

• Stories by and about people from marginalized experiences

• Stories that end on a hopeful note

• Stories that are solidly ‘middle grade’—i.e., geared toward audiences between the ages of 8 and 12

• We love reading work from teen writers, but we accept work from creators of all ages

We’re less likely to accept…

• Stories that could be categorized as ‘YA’ or adult

  • If your work is on the border between middle-grade and young adult or you aren’t sure, feel free to submit, but know we’re probably less likely to accept it.

  • A good rule of thumb: would you read this to a ten-year-old? If not, it might not be right for us.

• Pieces that are persistently dark or hopeless. We prefer an upbeat ending if possible!

Hard nos

• Work created using AI—please don’t send this to us! We’re a venue for writing centering diverse experiences and perspectives, not artificially generated prose. We will not knowingly publish any work created using AI, and we ask you to refrain from submitting it.

• Stories containing prejudiced stereotypes

• Homophobic, racist, misogynistic, ableist, xenophobic, and otherwise prejudiced writing. We’re aware that these themes may be presented in your writing, as they are part of the lived experience of marginalized writers and characters, however.

What about…

• Multiple submissions: Yes, you can send us multiple pieces at one time! Please fill out a separate form for each submission.

• Simultaneous submissions: Yes, feel free to send us pieces that another publication is also considering! Let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere so we can withdraw it from consideration – and congrats!!

• Reprints: We accept works that have been previously published (for example: by another magazine or anthology, on social media, on your blog, etc.) – we just ask that you let us know where it was previously published so we can credit the initial venue properly, and that you make sure that your work is out of the previous publisher’s exclusivity period (if applicable) before you submit

• Submissions are free and will remain that way! We are not currently a paying publication; however, we plan to provide an ebook and paperback contributor’s copy to all contributors.

• If we previously rejected your piece, please do not send it again for this call. However, feel free to send other pieces you’ve written!

• If we’ve previously accepted your piece, feel free to resubmit it to this call!

Genres & Length

All genres are welcome—fantasy, science fiction, contemporary, historical, mystery, or anything in between!

Fiction

• We’re open to anything from microfiction (0-250 words) to full-fledged short stories, with a soft upper limit of 3000.

Poetry

• Any length and any form! We’ve published blank verse, free verse, prose poems, rhyming poems…and we’d love to see new formats.

• If your poem has specific formatting requirements, we recommend submitting it as a .pdf file to ensure that we see it exactly as you intend. You can easily create .pdf files from Google Docs and other common word processing platforms.

Art

• Particularly with art, we really want to be surprised! Photographs, drawings, paintings, collage, multimedia, sketches, doodles…we’re up for anything!

• We’re also looking for full-color cover art! We may hold a separate contest for cover art after the general submission period has closed.

• If possible, please send your images as .jpeg or .png files, to make sure we can view them.

Response Time

• We aim to respond to all submissions within 14 days of the submission window closing. If your piece is held for consideration, it may be a bit longer.

• We’ll post regular updates on Instagram about where we are in our consideration! If we say we’ve responded to everything and you haven’t heard from us, check your spam folder, and then feel free to DM us on Instagram or email us at [email protected]

Final Notes

Submit writing as a .docx, .doc, or .pdf file. For art, submit as a .png or .jpeg to ensure we can open it!

We prefer typed submissions in Times New Roman size 12 or similar, but we won’t reject on the basis of formatting unless we truly can’t read the piece.

For original work: We claim first electronic rights, non-exclusive anthology rights, and non-exclusive archival rights, but the copyright of your work always remains yours. If the work is later published elsewhere, we ask that you credit Promised Protagonists as the first publisher.

Via: Promised Protagonists.