We accept poetry, fiction, and non-fiction submissions from everyone regardless of age, nationality, or school affiliation. For non-fiction, we are looking for interviews, personal essays, and creative or scholarly essays; no literary criticism, please. Submissions are open from September 1 through November 15.

For our annual literary contest, we accept submissions from everyone who is not a current Sarah Lawrence student. This year’s contest genre is fiction. Please check here for contest guidelines.

We are also accepting submissions for this issue’s cover art, which is in color, and for art within the issue, which will be in black and white. Our printed journal is 6″ x 9″, upright or “portrait” orientation, and we do not rotate images to fit the page. While art of all shapes, orientations, and aspect ratios will be considered, we encourage you to bear our specifications in mind when selecting images to submit. Click here for more details.

General guidelines for submissions:

1. We accept only email submissions. Send all emails to lumina@gm.slc.edu. Paper submissions will not be considered or returned.
2. The subject of your email should be “SUBMISSION” + the category of your work, e.g. “SUBMISSION — POETRY” or “SUBMISSION — ART.”
3. Please send manuscripts in a Microsoft Word 2003-compatible (.rtf, .doc) or OpenDocument (.odt) format. We are unable to read files with the extension “.docx”. For art submissions, image resolution should be 300 dpi.
4. Please include a three-sentence biographical statement with your submission.
5. Poets may submit up to three poems, 60 lines maximum per poem.
6. Fiction and nonfiction writers may submit up to two pieces, 5,000 words maximum per piece. Please double space and number pages. Our policy is blind submissions; your name should appear on the front page only and will be removed prior to review.
7. Previously published works will not be considered. If your work is selected by us, rights will revert to author after publication in Lumina; subsequent publishers should credit us for first appearance.
8. Simultaneous submissions are considered as long as we are notified immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere. Once we have accepted a piece, we assume that it will be published by us.
9. We reserve the right to publish some of the pieces of each issue on our website.
10. We reserve the right to edit submissions for style, grammar, and length. Non-standard English must be integral to the idea of the piece to be considered acceptable.
11. We strongly recommend that all foreign-language submissions be accompanied by an English translation.
12. We reserve the right to crop, edit, or otherwise modify art submissions to meet our printer’s specifications.

Poets, writers, and artists whose work is accepted for publication will receive a free copy of the 2010 issue and an invitation to the launch party, held in conjunction with Sarah Lawrence’s annual Poetry Festival in mid-April. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer payment or reimburse travel expenses. Good luck, and we look forward to reading your work!