"Witness seeks original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography that is innovative in its approach, broad-ranging in its concerns, and unapologetic in its perspective. The magazine blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to their times."
Vibe: Top-tier stuff. Not Paris Review, but ok
Response time:
4-6 month / 163 days
Payment:
$50
Simultaneous submissions:
Yes
Previously published:
No
Submission fee:
$3
Expedited submissions:
No
Available in print:
Yes
Examples online:
Yes
Average acceptance rate:
40%
Country:
United States
Year founded:
1987
Has Masthead info:
Yes
Chill Subs Tracker Stats!
Total tracked subs
15
Average acceptance rate
40% of subs
(50% of people)
Average response time
163 days
Average acceptance time
186 days
Average rejection time
152 days
Fastest response time
126 days
Slowest response time
186 days
Important stuff
Active on social media
Pays! $50 per published piece, whether in the print or online issue
Available in print. All contributors also receive one (1) copy of the issue.
Submission fee (though they have free reading periods)
Genres
👌
Fiction
Max words: 7000Max pieces: 1Or up to three (3) flash fiction pieces of 1,500 total words or less
👌
Nonfiction
Max words: 7000Max pieces: 1
👌
Poetry
Max pieces: 5
Masthead
We currently list only main editors, more will be added later!
If you're an editor, you can edit your masthead in our admin panel :)
If you're an editor, you can edit your masthead in our admin panel :)
Areej Quraishi
Editor-in-ChiefBenjamin Stallings
Managing EditorLindsay Olson
Engagement EditorExamples
'Touchless Entry' by Hadara Bar-Nadav
(excerpt)
Read the full piece in the magazineEveryone is alive somehow
mowing dead grass and fighting
pizza boxes into a recycling bin.
Things don’t fit right or
is that me descending
a staircase, splintering apart beneath
the morning’s blowtorch sun.
Bare feet on rough concrete,
a parade of black ants crawling
through the cracks. Oak trees thrash
and sigh—their gorgeous heads
on fire.
'Blue Faced Honeyeater' by Aiden Baker
(excerpt)
Read the full piece in the magazineOver the years, my wife developed peculiar habits. The strangest, my favorite, is the way she will, on occasion, scrunch up her face and give birth to fruit. The first time she did it we were at the zoo. We’d spent the day wandering along the gravel paths, pointing at elephants and tigers and spitting camels, sharing an ice cream cone. We were standing by the perching birds exhibit, peeking through the iron cage, when it happened. Abel began heavy breathing. I hardly noticed— she simply exhaled a small oh, reached into her pants, and pulled them from her: a handful of little red buds. They were coated in a thin layer of mucus and glinted, ravishingly, in the sun.
“I wonder?” Abel said, holding the slick red things in her palm.
“Strawberries!” I said, amazed. She was a woman of wonders.
'Unscented' by Andi Brown
(excerpt)
Read the full piece in the magazineWhen I return home at night, I’m careful not to kiss my wife. It’s by mutual agreement. It was a routine we had before COVID, when all we had to worry about was MRSA, C-diff, and any human fluids that might get on my scrubs. In lieu of kisses, I strip my clothes off in the laundry room and walk naked through our apartment to the shower. Even our dog knows he will have to wait to be petted. The shower is when I return to myself. As a trans healthcare provider, I leave half myself in the parking lot when I go to work at the hospital. I’m supposed to be calm and professional, so good at my job that they keep me around in spite of what I am.
But at home I get to be me. I use body wash called Dragon’s Roar. It comes in a giant orange bottle and has a studly knight on the front wearing chain-mail with the sleeves cut off. It’s the kind of oppressively masculine scent high school boys prefer, and that I always wanted to smell like when I was a teenager.
'Queer Seoul' by Mee Ok Icaro
(excerpt)
Read the full piece in the magazineAfter wading through the Seoulite crowds with their iPhone screens blazing tiny future K-pop stars into the night, Dee and I hit up a convenient store for snacks and beer before settling onto a bench in one of the many hangout areas. There was something so relaxed about my newfound friend nearly half my age, with her unbelievably long hair tied up in a high, scrunchied ponytail, her oversized pink T-shirt tucked into her mom jeans, and her silver glitterbomb backpack shimmering like a disco ball in the open September air.
“How was your meeting at the adoption agency?” I asked.
“I didn’t find out much.” She cracked open a beer. “I just went in. Didn’t even schedule an appointment. Did you find out anything?”
“Yeah, they found my mom,” I said, as I offered her some chips. “She doesn’t want to meet me.”
Contributors on Chill Subs (0)
All contributors (last updated: forever ago)
Contributors are coming :)
(or not, maybe it's too many of them)
(or not, maybe it's too many of them)