Philly Chapbook Review is open to original poetry submissions of three to five poems or either one piece of short fiction or up to three pieces of flash fiction for our Fall 2026 issue and beyond from now until September 15. Full details for each category along with the link to our submission form can be found below.
Only one submission per author will be accepted: either poetry or fiction.
Original Poetry/Fiction (OPEN): Click here to submit.
A small honorarium ($10) will be paid for first serial and archival rights for accepted submissions and all contributors get a Meet Our Contributor post. All original work will be considered for Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations.
While simultaneous submissions are permitted, we try to send first-round decisions–which account for over 90% of responses–within a week or two. If you can give us this time, we greatly appreciate it.
Poetry
We’re looking for serious poetry that has something important to say. This can mean poems about topics important to you, poems telling us about who you are or what you think, or an unusual or clever creative style. Poems don’t need to deal with weighty subjects, but should be meaningful. All poems should be 40 non-space lines or fewer.
Our feelings about form have evolved to only avoid what we perceive to be tired forms: metered verse with end rhyme in the English style, short forms made popular in the U.S. over a century ago like haiku, tanka, etc. Forms like non-rhyming sonnets, ghazals, pantoums, and others where serious work is still being done are now welcome along with our primary focus on free verse.
We also like to feature a poet rather than a poem, so submissions must include three to five poems. Each submission is judged as a whole.
Fiction
We’re looking for short fiction that has something meaningful to say. This can include stories that explore subjects important to you, reflect a distinct perspective or voice, or take an interesting or creative approach to storytelling. Stories should feel intentional and thoughtfully crafted.
We are open to a wide range of styles and genres within literary fiction, including speculative, flash fiction, experimental, and hybrid work. By “literary,” we mean fiction that shows strong attention to language, voice, and character, rather than relying primarily on plot or genre conventions.
Fiction submissions should contain either one story of 1,000-5,000 words or up to three flash fiction pieces of 500-1,000 words each.
There is no fee to submit, but please read and follow the guidelines below:
- If you have difficulty with this form, please email info {@} phillychapbookreview.org.
- Each piece should begin a new page of a single .doc or .docx file.
- We are pleased to accept submissions from anywhere in the world.
- Only literary writing, please. This doesn’t mean that poems or stories can’t fall into a genre, but if they do, they should be meaningful to serious readers.
- We accept work that includes untranslated non-English words, but the piece much be at least 50% English. This includes both hybrid pieces and bilingual translations.
- Any entries that denigrate another person on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual preference, or disability will be discarded. We are a small publication run by a disabled person who loves the great variety of voices in literature.
- Work may not be previously published in a periodical. (We define periodicals as magazines, websites, blogs, or social media feeds with more than 500 followers.)
- To allow others a chance, if we’ve published your work before, please wait two full issue periods after the one in which you appear before submitting again.
Contents
“This language offers one possible framing through which to appreciate the law’s capacity to hope for, request, and even command commitment to a more just future.” Read two poems by Maggie Wang, our first biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Possibilities for Action.”
Chapbook Poem: I’ll Never Look This Good Again by Douglas Piccinnini
“[The poem] came out of real pressure: despair, worry, and grief I wanted to hold unflinchingly, alongside the anxiety of becoming a parent… For me the poem became a meditation on all the feeling that surfaces precisely when we’re told to feel only joy.” Read an excerpt from Douglas Piccinnini’s chapbook, House of Bad Memories, along with a few words from the poet.
“She sees herself in carbon, the element that bonds with almost anything- not because it wants to, but because it has empty spaces and things keep showing up to fill them. Notifications. Noise. Needs that never stop arriving.” Read four poems by Joely Williams, our second biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Single Mother Considers the Periodic Table.”
ADHD in a Non-ADHD World: on Undersight by Alison Hurwitz
“[Hurwitz] shares moments of angst and moments of awe. More than that, there are moments of deep recognition. She sees herself in [her sons] and, in fact, receives a later-life ADHD diagnosis of her own.” Read the full chapbook review by new contributor, Nancy Murphy.
“The woman’s head & hair are lavishly dressed. I probably leapt off the logic of the hairdresser being blind and therefore had to work on the head/body/mind rather than just hair as a surface issue of presentation.” Read two poems by Irene Cunningham, our third biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “The Blind Hairdresser.”
Flash Fiction: Nova by Kimmy Chang
“‘Nova’ is a lyrical second-person story about the narrator’s first true encounter with death…the story presents loss not as beautiful in itself, but as the place where beauty begins.” Read the first original fiction piece of the Summer 2026 issue, “Nova” by Kimmy Chang.