Submission Guidelines

Black Heart is currently open to fiction and poetry submissions. We are looking for:

Submissions from these categories are posted as part of our ongoing publishing cycle, featuring new fiction updates every Friday and poetry updates every Monday.

FEE VS. FREE SUBMISSIONS: We love literature. We also love our writers. But we also receive lots of submissions from people who’ve never read our submission guidelines, and we have an extremely small staff to sift through the slush pile. Therefore, due to the volume of submissions we receive, we have sub-divided our submissions stream into FEE and FREE submission options. Writers using the $3 paid submission service will receive a brief written response to their work, while those who prefer to submit fee-free will receive a less personal response.

We would love to reply to everyone who sends us work, but we just don’t have the time. If you’ve even read this far, you should congratulate yourself and write “Black Heart rocks my world” in your cover letter to show you know what time it is.

-=-Free submissions will always be available for those who prefer them, and no preference will be given to fee-based submissions.-=-

RESPONSE TIMES: Vary. If you haven’t heard from us in over 6 months, we’re probably not interested in publishing your piece, as we usually respond sooner.

PAYMENT: We regret that no monetary payment is available at this time, as Black Heart is run entirely on the sunshine and rainbows that emanate from its volunteer staffers’ asses. In other words: we have never made money off the backs of our writers, nor do we intend to. All sales generated by our online store and fee-based submissions are reinvested into paying for the day-to-day activities of running an online magazine.

How to Submit

Send us your best work via our submissions manager. Options are available for each genre; please choose appropriately.

(Last updated 2 November 2011)