Open Submissions Guideline
Submission Guidelines
When submitting to Written Tales, we accept the following: short fiction, short non-fiction, short story, flash fiction, and poetry. We’re open to almost any topic you can throw at us. If we feel a piece is not suitable for our publication, we will let you know. When submitting poetry, we enjoy all styles and forms. All we ask is you check your grammar before submission.
For short stories, we prefer stories between one hundred (100) to two thousand (2000) words.
Our publications’ main goal, bring literature back to the forefront through the lost art of poetry and short story. And more importantly, give new and seasoned writers a voice and platform for maximum exposure and help increase their fan base.
The magazine is self-funded with the goal of, one day, paying all our writers for their submissions. Currently, we do not pay for submissions. Any author we select for publication is offered a coupon for 20% off our subscriptions.
This includes access to all content on writtentales.substack.com, including past, current, and future e-ChapBooks. Please keep checking back as we update our guidelines often. To view what our subscriptions include, please visit our about page.
Accepted Categories
- Poetry
- Flash Fiction
- Short Fiction
- Short Non-Fiction
What We Accept
We accept creative works you have written as flash fiction, non-fiction, short story, or poetry. All submitted work must be original and written by you, and unpublished. We do not accept work published on your personal profiles, stories in draft form, or stories posted on your personal blog or website(s). We will consider reprints if you, the author, maintain the rights to the work.
We no longer accept simultaneous submissions. The reason for this decision, we have gotten bit more than once after we accepted a piece for publication. Before print, the authors asked us to pull the submission as another magazine accepted their feature after the fact. Because of this new requirement, we will try to respond within 14 days, or sooner, stating if we will accept your submission.
No A.I. Derived Work Accepted
We do not accept any works derived from A.I. Authors who willfully submit a piece created with A.I. tools such as, but not limited to, chatGPT, openAI, or Rytr will be banned and their submission deleted. A.I. is no friend to creative writers, it’s the death of creative arts. Our publication and platform are dedicated to the promotion of the creative process by humans and not machines to entertain & enlighten those who enjoy reading poetry & short stories.
Terms & Conditions
By submitting to Written Tales, you are granting us first publication and non-exclusive rights, but you, the writer, still own your work. The copyright always remains with the author. First publication rights grant us a 30-day period wherein the work is not published elsewhere. Non-Exclusive rights allow us to publish your wonderful work on our online platforms, social media channels, audio, digital, and/or print publications, promotional materials (audio, digital, and/or print), and archives to help further promote your work and the Written Tales writers. We ask you to give credit to Written Tales Magazine as the source of first publication.
Submit to Written Tales
General Submissions
Submitting your work to our general submission category is easy. Just fill out the form at this link, and you’re on your way. If we accept the work, we’ll let you know. If, for any reason, you don’t hear from us within twenty-one (21) days, please reach out for a status update. This category is open year-round. We look forward to reviewing your submissions!
Theme Based Chapbook Submissions
Submitting your work to our theme-based submission is easy as well. Just fill out the form at this link, and you’re on your way. If we accept the work, we will let you know. If, for any reason, you do not hear from us within twenty-one (21) days, please reach out for a status update. To see if the category is open, please check the submission page.
Edit Your Work
Edit your work before submission, as we will not accept submissions with major grammar and spelling errors. Once accepted, we will edit minor issues. To help you with this effort, many tools are available at little or no cost.
To help with editing your work, please see:
Depending on the number of submitted works, it can take thirty (30) – sixty (60) days for your work to appear.