We’re now accepting submission for Issue 03! Submit on our submittable HERE.

Submission period is open from now until May 26th.

Submission Guidelines

What kind of writing do we want to see?

We’re particularly interested in themes of healing and reclaiming, family and found family, communities and support systems, and quite plainly, love. We invite you to invent, reinvent, experiment, and bend or break the rules. Give us your big and your small, your subtle poetry and your speculative fiction, your political and your personal, your faith, identity, love, loss, and humanity. Our previous issues have featured works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that grapple with harsh realities of everything from social media to systemic oppression and inspire us to fight against these barriers.

All writers with pieces accepted will be rewarded $30 and will retain rights to their works. Wizards in Space seeks writers from all backgrounds, and all writers are encouraged to submit. Voices of color, nonbinary genders, the LGBTQ+ community–we are a safe place for your work. If it’s your original writing, submit it! Even if you’re not sure which category it fits into, or if it’s our style, or if it’s any good at all, submit your work! We promise to read every submission with kindness and an open mind

The best way to get a sense of what we’re looking for is to read through Issues 01 and 02, which you can order HERE.

• The nitty gritty:
  • Please do not include your name or any identifying information in your submission or in the file name to help us comply with our anonymous submission process.
  • No cover letters, please. You’ll have the chance to write a couple sentences about yourself when you submit.
  • Previously published work is a-okay, as are simultaneous submissions. Just let us know where a piece has been published before, and we’ll be sure to credit it.
  • Fiction, nonfiction, and cross-genre: one piece, up to 5000 words. Poetry: up to five pages. (Only one poem per page, please.)
  • Typed, numbered, double-spaced pages are best.
  • Please title all your pieces.
  • We accept .doc and .docx file formats. If those formats are not accessible to you, we will accept pdf.
  • Due to the personal nature of creative nonfiction, use discretion about using the names of real people in your work.
  • If your work contains sensitive material, please include content warnings as necessary. We reserve the right to add or modify content warnings as part of our editing process.

Is there anything we’re not looking for?

• fanfiction
• extreme profanity
• work that you, the writer, aren’t proud of

I’m a visual artist. Can I submit my work?
Yeah! Guidelines are on the submittable form for visual work!

How will the work be judged?
All writing is judge anonymously. If you have any questions or concerns about our judging process, chat with us!

I keep seeing the word “fandom” thrown around. Am I eligible to submit, even if I don’t feel like I fit that category?
YES! Our rule of thumb is if you’re bummed about not being eligible to submit, you’re eligible to submit. While this mag did grow out of the Harry Potter fandom as an organized group, over 35% of our Issue 01 writers did not identify as part of the fan community. We define a “fan” as someone who’s passionate about something – anything at all, from Star Wars to linguistics to college football – so if that’s you, we’d love to hear from you.

The format stuff

Manuscripts

• Typed pages, double-spaced for prose, single-spaced for poetry.
• Please number your pages.
• Prose: Up to 5,000 words.
• Poetry: Up to 3 pages. Whether that’s five flash poems or one epic is up to you!

Photography & Art

• Highest resolution and best quality that you can get your hands on, please.
• We will accept art in JPEG, PNG or TIFF formats.
• All visual artwork must be at least 4.5’’ x 7’’ to fit in the book.
• All visual artwork must be 300 dpi.

A few more odds and ends

Please title all your work. I just did a reading where I said I never title my pieces but, I’m sorry, you’ll have to come up with a title. Please do not title your pieces with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Content warnings must be included at the top of the work when submitted. If deemed necessary, content warnings may be added by the editorial team for publication.

A note on names: You are welcome to publish your work under whatever name honors you, chosen or given, or you can elect to be published anonymously due to the personal nature of a piece. You’ll be able to specify during the submission process. (We will still need your info for payment.)

Okay, but where do I actually submit?

Send us what you’ve got through Submittable!

What you’re agreeing to upon submission

Accepted work may be featured, along with your name and bio, on the Wizards in Space website and social media accounts. Please know you’re agreeing to this upon submission.

Writing may be edited and we reserve the right to publish our edited version without your prior approval. But we’re very good at what we do, so don’t worry.

Writers keep all rights to their work. We ask that if your piece has yet to be published online or in other publication that you cite Wizards in Space Literary Magazine as its original home, but you should be able to post and repost your beautiful stories and experiences as much as you want. That’s just like, our opinion, dude.

Any questions or concerns about our submission process? Feel free to drop us a line.

Good luck! Thank you! May the space wizards always come down from the stars and bless you when you sneeze.