Sequestrum accepts manuscripts year-round, offers pay-what-you-can subscriptions, publishes on a rolling basis (about every two weeks), pairs all publications with stunning visual components, and is home to award-winning writers and new voices alike. 

Sequestrum is a competitive, paying market which publishes high-quality short fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts. Recent contributors include Pulitzer Prize nominees, Guggenheim and NEA Fellows, award-winning novelists and poets, as well as many new and emerging voices. 

We’re committed to publishing the bulk of our publications from unsolicited manuscripts (95%) and are open to all stylistic schools and “isms,” including the occasional genre piece.

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Sequestrum

Please identify your work as fiction or nonfiction in your cover letter.
Submissions should generally not exceed 10,000 words. If you have a great piece which you think is a good fit and exceeds these guidelines, send it. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Fiction & Nonfiction - General Submission

Submissions are considered for stand-alone publications (graphic narratives) or as issue cover art. Artists retain all rights to their works. Response time for artwork can be longer. Featured pieces of new, upcoming, and established artists reach a large, supportive audience.

Comics, Graphic Narratives, & Visual Arts

Families are an endless source of material. We want buried secrets. We want generational stories. We want stories of betrayal and belonging, of fractures and survival, of losing hope and redemption. At this point in literature, a “normal” family might be the strangest story of all. We want that too. We want your most ambitious writing in its most imaginative form. Whether that’s realism or fantasy, slipstream or traditional, we want to read it. Deadline: 9/15.
Please identify your work as fiction or nonfiction in your cover letter.  Full guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/theme-family  Submissions should generally not exceed 12,000 words. If you have a great piece which you think is a good fit and exceeds these guidelines, send it. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Theme: Family - Fiction & Nonfiction

Families are an endless source of material. We want buried secrets. We want generational stories. We want stories of betrayal and belonging, of fractures and survival, of losing hope and redemption. At this point in literature, a “normal” family might be the strangest story of all. We want that too. We want your most ambitious writing in its most imaginative form. Whether that’s realism or fantasy, slipstream or traditional, we want to read it. Deadline: 9/15.
Full guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/theme-family
Submissions should be no more than thirty-five (35) lines; up to four (4) poems per submission. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Theme: Family - Poetry

Whether that place is rural or urban, natural or constructed, real or imagined makes little difference. A place can haunt us. It can inspire us. A place can surprise and delight and despair. In short, we’re expecting stories and poetry which couldn’t exist outside its “place.” Point to your passion on a map, and we’ll follow.

Place:  Poetry

Place

Submissions should be no more than thirty-five (35) lines; up to four (4) poems per submission. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Poetry - General Submission

If writing is all about tension, desire is the fuel. Desire doesn’t pause to contemplate etiquette or question what’s possible. Desire complicates, evolves, produces triumphs and tragedies. Desire moves forward. And that’s the sort of writing we’re after. We want complex, ambitious writing with tension and innovation to spare. Deadline 6/15.
Full guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/themed-submissions-desire.
 
 Submissions should be no more than thirty-five (35) lines; up to four (4) poems per submission. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Theme: Desire - Poetry

Please identify your work as fiction or nonfiction in your cover letter.
If writing is all about tension, desire is the fuel. Desire doesn’t pause to contemplate etiquette or question what’s possible. Desire complicates, evolves, produces triumphs and tragedies. Desire moves forward. And that’s the sort of writing we’re after. We want complex, ambitious writing with tension and innovation to spare. Deadline 10/15.

 

Full guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/themed-submissions-desire.
Submissions should generally not exceed 12,000 words. If you have a great piece which you think is a good fit and exceeds these guidelines, send it. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Theme: Desire - Fiction & Nonfiction - Fiction

Theme: Desire - Fiction & Nonfiction - Nonfiction

Science Fiction & Fantasy are loaded terms in literature. There’s swords and sorcery, as well as aliens and artificial intelligence, sure. But there’s also defeating a memory. There’s communing with a disease. There’s finding a way to the past, the future. Finding a path without limitations. There are other worlds out there, and every one helps us understand our own a little better. In short, we want your best writing with a fantastical element. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or some combination thereof. Make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. As always, wow us. Thrill us. Never bore us. We’re eager to read your best. Deadline 10/15.
Full guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/theme-fantasy.
Submissions should be no more than thirty-five (35) lines; up to four (4) poems per submission.
Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material

Theme: Science Fiction & Fantasy - Poetry

Please identify your work as fiction or nonfiction in your cover letter.
Science Fiction & Fantasy are loaded terms in literature. There’s swords and sorcery, as well as aliens and artificial intelligence, sure. But there’s also defeating disease. There’s communing with a memory. There’s finding a way to the past, the future. Finding a path without limitations. There are other worlds out there, and every one helps us understand our own a little better. In short, we want your best writing with a fantastical element. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or some combination thereof. Make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. As always, wow us. Thrill us. Never bore us. We’re eager to read your best. Deadline 10/15.
Full guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/theme-fantasy.
Submissions should generally not exceed 12,000 words. If you have a great piece which you think is a good fit and exceeds these guidelines, send it. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Include a brief bio in your cover letter to be used as a contributor bio in the event of publication. Your name should not appear anywhere on your manuscript. No previously-published material.

Sequestrum

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Theme: Desire - Poetry

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