Atlanta Review publishes all kinds of great poetry; we do not subscribe to any particular "school." We read and admire lyric, narrative, experimental, form, free verse, prose poems, and any other kind of poetry. To get a sense of our journal, read some back issues, or better yet, subscribe.
Our new reading periods in Submittable for general submissions are open from January 1st to March 1st and September 15th to December 1st. We will try to respond within six months (it may be considerably longer for contest entries). We cap our general submissions at a certain number. If it is within our reading period, but no submission window appears, we have reached our cap for that period. You may submit work by snail mail at any time as long as you accompany your work with a SASE.
Our contest reading period opens February 1st and closes on May 1st. The Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets opens April 1st and closes June 1st.
Our Fall/Winter issue is our Contest Issue, and includes poetry by winners and runners-up. Our Spring/Summer issue is our International Issue, and includes poetry by poets from an international region or country, translated into English (if necessary). Both issues contain general poetry submissions, so feel free to send us poetry any time.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately that you need to withdraw a poem via the "Activity and Messages" function in Submittable. Only click "Withdraw" if you need to withdraw the entire submission.
A large number of poets have been requesting an online submission option, so we have made that available here. We also support sustainable options in our operations. Online submissions are good for the environment.
Some people have asked why we are now charging a "reading fee." We do not charge you to review your work. We must pay the platform provider to provide this service to you. We consulted with some of our regularly submitting writers about their expenses for an average submission, including printing and mailing costs, before setting a price that we believe is in line with what they previously paid. Of course, there is also the convenience of being able to track your submissions and not having to go to the post office. We have a number of writers who suffer from disabilities who were particularly keen to have an online option.
With that said, you may continue to submit typed poems by mail for no additional fee at our mailing address: 686 Cherry St. NW, Suite 333, Atlanta GA 30332-0161.
If you choose to submit by regular mail, please enclose a S.A.S.E., with enough postage to return your poems. Otherwise, we will recycle manuscripts. Submissions without an S.A.S.E. will not be read.
Beginning with the 2018 International Poetry Contest, all contest entries must be submitted through Submittable. We will not read any contest poems submitted by mail.
For General Submissions, we ask for:
- No more than five unpublished poems per submission, each poem on its own page, contained in a single .doc or .docx file.
- No identifying information on any poem. The Atlanta Review reads work anonymously: we publish poems, not poets.
- Only one submission per submission period.
For Contest Submissions, we we ask for:
- Unpublished poems, each poem on its own page, contained in a single .doc or .docx file. Poems must not have won a major prize in another contest. You may enter as many poems as you like, provided you pay the fee for each submission.
- No identifying information on any poem.
For specific guidelines to the Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets (for poets aged 18-23), please click on the category.
Cover letters are not necessary for any submission, but we appreciate learning about your interest in the Atlanta Review and in poetry in general, and we do like it if you list the poems you've sent. We read cover letters after decisions have been made. We read poems anonymously, so please do not put your name and address on each page of your submission.
If you have any additional questions, please drop a line to atlantareview@gatech.edu.
Guidelines & Information:
Poems must be your original and unpublished creative work, and must not have won a major prize in other contests. Please put all poems in one file, and please number the pages. Do not include identifying information on the poems or file name.
Details:
- Deadline: May 1st. Winners are announced in late summer and are published in the Fall/Winter Issue.
- One Grand Prize winner will receive $1000 and publication. Twenty entrants will receive International Publication Awards, with publication in the contest issue, and a free copy. Thirty entrants will receive International Merit Awards, with recognition in the contest issue, and a free copy.
- Previous Grand Prize winners and associates, friends, or students of the judge(s) are not eligible.
- We offer a flat rate: $15 for 5 poems (total of 10 pages per submission), all in a single file, each poem beginning on a new page. Please do not include more than 5 poems in an individual submission. However, you may make as many submissions as you like, provided you submit the $15 fee each time. (That is to say, please make multiple entries in Submittable to enter more than 5 poems. So, if you wanted to submit 15 poems, you would enter the contest 3 times, and pay the $15 for each submission.)
- We do not accept contest entries by snail mail. Any entries received by mail will be returned unread.
- Please do not submit contest poems to our general submission pool.
Please Note: We will try to accommodate poems with special formatting needs (specific margins, long lines, etc.), but we can't guarantee that your poem will appear on our pages exactly as you submitted them. We encourage poets to follow standard formatting guidelines: Times New Roman 12, with 1" margins. This will help minimize appearance shifts as we import your poems into our publishing software.
Kindly do not send any work that harms or marginalizes others, or is sexist, misogynistic, racist, ageist, classist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic etc. We also don’t want poems that glorify violence or focus on dead-or-dying animals, particularly as an inelegant excuse to meditate on death.
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