we seek the following:

Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, visual art—artwork, photography, collage—ephemera, and the wildly unclassifiable. The prose word limit is 1500. For poetry and visual art, submit 2-4 pieces. We strongly favor work with depth and originality that explores the human condition and leans toward unusual, possibly urgent, and slightly unhinged. Life is absurd, and we like being moved in unexpected ways by its absurdity. More on literature and art subs →

Ephemera is all about humor. We’re looking for terrible elevator pitches, delightful fangirl 4th-grade book reports, and hand-drawn pie charts. More on ephemera subs →

pub basics

We publish a themed issue every few months. Submissions should connect with the designated theme in some way.

We only accept submissions through Submittable, and submissions are generally open unless we’ve reached our capacity (emotionally and Submittably).

We cannot offer payment at this time, but we hope to soon. We never charge a submission/reading fee. Please only submit to one category per reading period.

Submissions must be previously unpublished, original, and from the original creator. We only accept stories written by corporeal humans—no AI-written stories here. For artwork, we just ask that it not be previously published online (social media is fine).

rights/releases

Your work belongs to you! We will publish, lovingly promote, and maintain a copy of it online. If your submission is later published elsewhere, we hope you mention Magpie Zine.

p.s.

We do not like nor publish work that is racist, queerphobic, xenophobic, fascist, exploitative, or hateful in any way, no no no. We also refrain from publishing creators whose work may not espouse these views but who personally do. We reserve the right to remove your work, without notice, from our site if we become aware of improper behavior, plagiarism, or other stipulations not enumerated here.

If we have already published your work, please wait three issues before sending us more.

If a piece was previously declined, please do not resubmit it unless encouraged to do so.

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