We will consider only previously unpublished and philosophically informed creative work (though our understanding of “philosophically informed” is capacious). Please submit only one prose manuscript or up to five poems for each issue. Please submit poems in one document. All submissions should be made through Submittable.

There is no submission fee. 

We pay $200 for each piece that we publish (or $50 for each poem we publish). 

We are generally looking for pieces that are between 1,000 and 5,000 words, though we will happily consider submissions that are shorter or longer than this. However, please do not submit any work that is more than 7,000 words.

We realize that you might also want to submit the same manuscript to other literary journals. If you do, please include a note to that effect in the cover letter you include with your submission and notify us immediately if the piece(s) you sent to us is(are) accepted for publication by another magazine or journal.

Please direct all inquires about the journal to bookxi@hamilton.edu.

Our topics for for 2025-26:

Open theme (submission period August 24, 2025-September 10, 2025 or until the submission cap of 200 is met).

What We Talk About When We Talk About….. (submission period October 15, 2025-December 15, 2025 at 9 am Eastern time or until the submission cap of 200 is met). All submissions must include “What We Talk About When We Talk About” as part of the title

On A Certain Blindness in Human Beings (submission period January 1, 2026-March 1, 2026 at 9 am Eastern Time or until the submission cap of 300 is met).