Submissions & Guidelines
Thank you for considering Still Here, a magazine for emotional realism, witnessing, and the quiet courage of staying.
Our general submission guidelines will stay up year-round so you can get a feel for what we love to publish. Keep them bookmarked, start polishing your pieces, and be ready. The next call for submissions will be here before you know it.
- Prose (up to 3,000 words)
- Short stories that center emotional realism, intimacy, small moments, or quiet strangeness. One piece per submission.
- Personal Essays (500-2,000 words)
- Honest reflections, moments of grief, joy, survival, or soft epiphanies that you carry silently. One piece per submission.
- Poetry (up to 25 lines)
- Any form. We love sensory details, clear images, and emotional truth. Up to three poems per submission.
- Art & Photography
- Color or black & white. We are drawn to stillness, soft strangeness, and work that feels like a held breath. Up to four pieces per submission.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
- Please send your submission as a Word document (.doc/.docx) or Google Doc link (with editing permissions turned off).
- For poetry, you may submit up to 3 poems in one document.
- For art/photography, please send up to 5 pieces in high-quality JPG or PNG format.
- Include a short third-person bio( 50-150 words) with your submission.
- We are currently unable to pay contributors, but we will celebrate your work widely and treat it with care.
- Reprints are accepted if you hold the rights. Please note where it was previously published.
- Please submit in 12pt Times New Roman, double-spaced with one-inch margins.
- Simultaneous Submissions are acceptable, but please notify us as soon as possible if your work has been accepted elsewhere.
- Multiple Submissions: You're welcome to submit up to 3 poems at a time. For prose and personal essays, we ask that you send one piece at a time to ensure we can give each submission the attention it deserves. For art and photography, please send up to four pieces that align with our current theme.
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Please email your submission to stillheremag@gmail.com
Use the subject line: Submission-[Category]-[Your Name]
Example: Submission-Personal Essay-Jane Doe
PUBLICATION:
You retain all rights to your work. We only ask that if you choose to republish elsewhere in the future, you credit Still Here as the first publisher. We may make minor edits for clarity and formatting. If more substantial edits are needed, we will reach out to discuss first.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:
- Emotional realism, softness, and truth.
- Pieces that feel intimate, honest, and rooted in your lived experience.
- We love the quiet, the tender, the strange, and the small moments that carry big weight.
Thank you for trusting us with your work. We can't wait to read what you have been carrying.