Happy Friday, everyone! In addition to the three journals with January 31 deadlines (listed in our earlier “Weeks 4 and 5 Reminders” post), graduate assistantship applications are also due today; click here for details. Two more reminders: tomorrow is the last day to apply for Spring Quarter (June) graduation, and Sunday is the last day of Crook & Folly‘s incentive period.

Read below for two more journals that we’ve added to our submission list! These both have February deadlines.

If you missed Prof. Morano’s email from this afternoon, scroll to the bottom of the page for info on DePaul’s Certificate in Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges.

(Note: Poetry Northwest, one of the journals listed below, has an earlier submission date of January 31 [today!] for their “Poetry in Translation” category. If you have translated a poem and would like to have it published [and if you’ve obtained permission from the copyright holder(s) for your translation, as per PN‘s guidelines], then you should plan on submitting to this category by this evening.)

(The information below has been copied from each journal’s website.)

1. Poetry Northwest: Emerging Writers, Essays/Reviews/Interviews, & The James Welch Prize

Deadline: February 15

About:

• After more than 60 years, Poetry Northwest remains committed to publishing the best in contemporary poetry, especially work willing to take risks and push readers to the emotional and intellectual edge of what poetry makes possible. Our editor, Keetje Kuipers, recently spoke with Poets & Writers about her editorial vision for the magazine:
  • “I’m interested in accepting poems that I struggle with, that I don’t understand, that I might even fundamentally disagree with in terms of either their craft or simply the argument that they’re making about the state of the world. I’m excited to take those chances and to make myself uncomfortable and make readers a little uncomfortable.”
• We are also staunch advocates for our writers, and poems published in our magazine often appear later in the pages of the Pushcart Prize and Best American anthologies.
• We strive to go beyond encouraging submissions from diverse voices. Our mission to employ equitable editorial practices runs parallel to our mission to publish the most exciting poetry we can find. Take a look at a recent issue and you’ll see that we stand behind both these commitments.
• Poetry Northwest is published semi-annually in June and December. We also publish new work (poetry, reviews, interviews and poetry-related essays) on our website, to supplement and extend our print edition. All work submitted to us during our reading period will be considered for the print edition, the website, or both.
• We do not accept work that has been previously published. This includes on personal blogs and social media.

General Guidelines:

• Simultaneous submissions are accepted in all categories with advance indication and prompt notification upon acceptance elsewhere. Please send a message to us through Submittable if any of your work has been accepted elsewhere. An email to us is not sufficient notice.
• You may submit up to four poems at a time. Please wait until the next reading period to submit again. [NOTE: Our next open reading period for general poetry submissions will be in the second half of 2025.]
• Please help us to ensure that we take to press a magazine that reflects the tremendous diversity of the contemporary poetry community by including in your cover letter any relevant information that you feel would aid us in this mission.
• Out of respect for our volunteer readers, we request that you include a content warning if your work references or depicts personal or historical trauma (including violence, genocide, assault, abuse, etcetera). Please use the format “CW: ______” at the bottom of your cover letter.
• If you are a previous contributor, we’d love to hear from you if it’s been two years since the date of your last publication with us. Writers submitting translations–please note that we now have a special translations category in which to submit. Do not submit in the general poetry category. We require that the translator have the permission of the original author for their translations.
• We accept submissions via our online submission system only. Unsolicited work sent via mail will be recycled; unsolicited work sent via email will be deleted unread. We will continue to accept mailed submissions from those who are currently incarcerated (details below). 
• Please submit only finished work, and do not send or inquire about revisions after submission. Although our editors do occasionally request or suggest changes, we cannot consider unsolicited revisions.
• Our goal is to respond to unsolicited submissions within 6 months, but we may take longer during our busiest months. Please be patient. We want to make sure your poetry gets the attention it deserves.

Open Submission Categories:

1. Presenting: Featuring Emerging Writers
   If you are an emerging writer, please consider submitting poems to Presenting, a print feature in which Senior Editor Xavier Cavazos introduces readers to a poet whose work has never before been featured in a nationally distributed print journal. All work submitted in this category will be considered for general publication even if not selected for the Presenting feature.
2. Essays/Reviews/Interviews
   Open for submissions. We welcome unsolicited submissions of book reviews, essays, or interviews all year.
3. The James Welch Prize for Indiginous Writers
   The 2025 James Welch Prize is open for submissions from December 15, 2024 to February 15, 2025. Please visit here for details and contest submission guidelines.

Click here to view the submission page for all submission categories.

2. Ninth Letter

Deadline: Feburary 28

About:

• Ninth Letter is published semi-annually in print at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. We are interested in prose and poetry that experiment with form, narrative, and nontraditional subject matter, as well as more traditional literary work.
• We do not accept previously published work, including self-published work on websites, blogs, etc. Simultaneous submissions are welcome! Please send a message withdrawing your poem(s) or flash piece(s) immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. Please only send only one submission per genre at a time. We ask that previous contributors wait three years from your publication date before submitting again. 
• We accept electronic submissions via Submittable. We do not accept submissions by email attachment. Email submissions will not be read.

Guidelines:

• For poetry, please submit 3-5 poems (max. 8 pages) at a time.
• For fiction and creative nonfiction, submit one story or essay up to 8,000 words at a time. For flash, you may submit up to 3 pieces with a total word count totaling no more than 4,000 words.
• If you classify your work as “hybrid,” please submit to the genre category you feel your submission most closely applies. You are welcome to leave a note in the cover letter field with any details you think our reading team would find helpful. We will make sure your submission gets to the right team and receives the attention and consideration it deserves.
• Submission Fee:
  • We charge a $3 reading fee to pay for Submittable and to contribute to our author payments. Fees are waived from December 1-31 or until we hit our cap of 300 submissions per genre.
• Fee Waivers:
  • A limited number of fee waivers are available for writers for whom the submission fee would present undue financial hardship. Please send a short email to ninthletter9@gmail.com to request a fee waiver. No proof of income or other sensitive information is required.
• Publication Terms & Payment:
  • Ninth Letter pays $25 per poem and $100 for prose upon publication and two complimentary copies of the issue in which the work appears. Contributors also receive an exclusive subscription discount offer at the time of acceptance. Ninth Letter acquires First North American Serial Rights (FNASR). We ask that you acknowledge Ninth Letter upon reprint of your work.
• Response Time:
  • We strive to respond to your submission within six months. Please wait until that time has elapsed before querying about the status of your submission.

Special Web Edition Submission Guidelines:

• REVERSAL (Submissions accepted Feb 1 – May 1)
  • The theme for this issue is “reversal”. In this winter of transition send us stories, essays and poems that portray the speaker’s u-turn, characters making their about face or the self coming full circle. We welcome reversals big and small, tragic or fortunate, long coming or sudden. We’ll be on the lookout for reversals of structure and form, theses refuted or contradictions embodied. In the best submissions, readers should feel the pull of two directions – in space, or time, or spirit. 
  • You may submit up to three poems, or one piece of short prose (fiction or nonfiction) of up to 3500 words; please also include a cover letter that briefly explains how you see your work connecting to the theme. Note: work submitted without this information may be withdrawn. Acceptable file formats are .doc, .docx, .rtf, and .pdf.
  • Submit your work for this special feature at ninthletteronline.submittable.com. Submissions sent via snail mail will not be considered for this issue. Email submissions are not accepted and will not be read.
  • Unless otherwise requested, please submit only once per reading period. We do not accept submissions of previously published work (including work published on personal blogs or social media sites). Please do not send multiple submissions within the same genre.
  • Submissions are free and will be capped at 325 subs per genre. Once we hit the submission cap in any genre, that genre will close automatically in Submittable.

Click here to view the submission page for all submission categories.

DePaul’s Certificate in Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges

In case you didn’t know, DePaul offers a unique Certificate in Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges. This program gives graduate students excellent preparation for classroom teaching by pairing three pedagogy courses with an internship in which you work for a semester alongside an instructor in a local two-year college. The certificate program’s requirements fit neatly into the electives portion of your graduate degree, and if the full certificate doesn’t work for you, it’s possible to do the internship after just one teaching course. This certificate is available to students in both the MA in English in Literature and Publishing and MA in Writing and Publishing.

Click here to access the certificate’s information page and application instructions, and click here to learn about all of the programs and certificates that DePaul has to offer English grad students. (For the list of undergraduate English programs, click here.)

If you’d like to discuss your future plans and whether this certificate or internship might fit into them, please contact Prof. Michele Morano at mmorano@depaul.edu.