We will be open to unthemed submissions Oct 1 – Dec 31.

We will be open for “Joy” themed submissions Spring 2020.

We accept submissions of short fiction 2,000 – 7,000 words and novelettes up to 15,000 words.

We are looking for brave works of speculative short fiction by authors from the African continent and diaspora that reject regressive ideas of blackness, respectability politics, and stereotype. Please submit your bravest, blackest, most difficult to sell stories to us. We want to read them.

We want stories that are well written, of high quality, and generally easy to read on a screen.

We are open to receiving stories around many themes, but we will immediately reject stories that feature any of the following:

• Graphic depictions of rape or sexual assault
• Needless brutalization of women and children
• Depictions of brutalization or abuse of people with disabilities
• Graphic abuse of animals

In addition:

• We only consider unpublished work, and we do not consider reprints (work that has been published in another magazine or on your blog or other social media) or fan fiction.
• We do not accept multiple submissions, so please wait until you have heard a response to a submission before submitting again.
• We do not accept simultaneous submissions.
• Please do not resubmit previously rejected stories in a new submission period. Resubmissions are by editorial solicitation only.
• We are only accepting submission from authors from the African diaspora and the African continent because #BlackWritersMatter. This is an intersectional definition of Blackness, and we strongly encourage submissions from women, members of the LGBTQIA community, and members from other underrepresented communities within the African diaspora.

What we want in speculative poetry is verse that struggles, reveals, instructs, comforts, and fights back. We are looking for weird, complex, honest and challenging work with a clear speculative element from Black authors. You can check out this post from our Poetry Editor for more on what we’d like to see in your poetry.

FIYAH opens for one month every summer to acquire cover artists for the following publication year. In keeping with our mission, we prioritize Black creators as the face and content of our magazine.

Beginning with submissions for the 2020 publication year, we are using a simple form to collect submissions for prose and poetry. We understand the use of a form may not be accessible to disabled users. If you require an alternative means of submission for your work, please contact us at team[@]fiyahlitmag.com and we will arrange one for you.

•  Click here to learn more about how to write a professional cover letter.
• Submissions should be submitted in proper short story manuscript format with your name, address, email address, and the story’s total word count on the first page. Click here for an example of proper short story manuscript format.
• For poetry, you may submit up to four (4) separate poems, but they must all be in a single document. This is a change from our previous submission guidelines, so please make sure you’re up to date.

Our payment schedule is as follows:

Short stories (2,000 – 7,000 words): $150 USD

Novelettes (<15,000 words): $300 USD

Poetry: $50 USD

FIYAH will publish accepted stories in a quarterly ebook magazine format, as well as archiving them on our website. Thus, FIYAH will claim first world electronic rights, nonexclusive archival rights, and nonexclusive anthology rights to your story.

This means that we are buying the rights to publish your story on FIYAH’s website and in electronic issues of our magazine. This also means that you can only publish your story as a reprint after it appears in FIYAH, and it cannot appear anywhere else online or in print prior to submission, or for 180 days after we publish it. After that it can be reprinted online, in a magazine, or in an anthology.

Response time will vary by volume of submissions. You may query after 45 days using email submissions[at]fiyahlitmag.com. Please include the date that you submitted and the title of your story.