General guidelines (see open calls for specific guidelines)
When: We generally accept submissions for the print journal during three time periods: September, December, and May. Those reading periods will open on the first day of the month and close once we hit the submissions cap for that period—which could take as little as a few days. Depending on our editorial needs, we may open pop-up reading periods as well. Visit this site and follow our social media platforms (Facebook, X, and Instagram) to stay informed.
miCRo submissions are open year-round, except during our summer contest (June 1st to July 15th) or if we have a backlog.
Please send only one submission per calendar year for each print-magazine genre unless we’ve encouraged your previous submission.
Who: The Cincinnati Review welcomes submissions from writers at any point in their careers. Current and former students, faculty, and staff of the University of Cincinnati or their families are ineligible to submit unless they are more than two years removed from their affiliation with the university. We also ask contributors to wait a year after their appearance in any particular medium (print magazine or miCRo series) before submitting again.
What: We don't consider previously published material, including work posted online, but we do accept simultaneous submissions (please withdraw any pieces taken by another journal).
Our typical response time is six months, Please don’t query until after that point.
Please note: Once we accept a piece, we prefer to work with it as submitted, without further revision from the writer, though we may suggest changes during the copyediting process.
Before you submit, we recommend you take a look at work from our miCRo series and/or our print journal (see pieces available to non-subscribers). And don't skip these statements from our genre editors on what they're looking for.
How: The Cincinnati Review acquires first North American serial rights, including electronic rights; all rights revert to author upon publication. We pay $25/page for prose and $30/page for poetry in the print journal and $25 for miCRo posts or special features.
miCRo is our weekly online flash feature, curated by our graduate-student editors, Please submit no more than three pieces in a single file. For fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid works, each piece should be no more than 500 words. For poetry, each poem should be 32 lines or less. For drama, scripts should be about three minutes when performed.
Fiction: Submissions should be double-spaced and no more than 10,000 words.
Poetry: Please submit no more than five poems at a time, totaling no more than ten manuscript pages. For longer pieces or sequences, send no more than ten manuscript pages total, and mention in your comments or cover letter that the submission is part of a longer work.
Literary Nonfiction: The most competitive submissions will generally be less than 5,000 words, though you can try us for a longer piece if you think it’ll knock our socks off. Please make sure it's double-spaced.