Guidelines for Submission
Summer Writing Contest
Thank you to Marcia Aldrich, former editor of Fourth Genre and author of, most recently, Studio of the Voice, for judging our 2024 Summer Writing Contest. The winner is “Callback to the Cube Champ” by Becky Blake. A Reader’s Choice Award goes to Nadia Ghent for “Cleaning the Augean Stables.” Five other contest submissions will also be published in our upcoming May 2025 online issue. Thank you to everyone who entered.
Thank you to Cindy Bradley, editor of the 2024 Summer Writing Contest. Thank you to our readers for the contest this year too: Jere Mitchum, Phyllis Brotherton, Monic Ductan, Terri Sutton, Krista Beucler, Reba Condiotti, Haley McNeely, Hye-Kyung Stella Kang, and Terry Yanulavich.
Cindy Bradley will edit our upcoming 2025 Summer Writing Contest, and Becky Blake, 2024 winner, will be its final judge. Contest dates will be July 1st- July 31st, and submissions via Submittable. First prize is $500 and publication; each Readers’ Choice Award–unanimous choice(s) of the first readers– receives $100 and publication, and all submissions are considered for publication.
Regular Submission Policy
Our regular reading period runs September 1st to December 15th.
We don’t have a lot of guidelines, except that we are interested in creative nonfiction generated by human minds that has not been published elsewhere, online or in print, and that we seek, of course, excellence. We welcome and appreciate diversity in both voice and form, and we encourage submissions by historically underrepresented writers. We honor and respect submitters from all backgrounds, and we do not countenance works that project hate on any group or ethnicity.
Very short pieces (e.g., 2-3 pages), unless they are so tightly written that they squeak, don’t stand as good of a chance with us as longer ones.
Please send only one essay at a time! We prefer online submissions, either via Submittable or by email. Emailed submissions are free, and we welcome them. We also accept submissions by ground mail at the post office box listed below.
We do like a brief cover letter. But please remove all identifying information from your submission itself, as we send those out to our readers anonymously.
It’s o.k. with us if you send your piece to other journals also. We just ask that your withdraw it from us as soon as it is accepted elsewhere.
This year Under the Sun was able to pay a $50 honorarium to each published writer. We are grateful to the Tennessee Arts Commission for helping make this happen, and we are working on further grants to continue paying honoraria. We nominate for Best of the Net, Pushcart, and The Best American Essays. We acquire First North American Serial Rights only, after which the author is free to publish his or her work elsewhere.
Under the Sun requests that it be acknowledged in the event of subsequent publication.
If we published a written work by you this year, we ask that you wait one year to submit to us again.
We also accept art submissions.
Please address all correspondence and submissions to:
Dr. Martha Highers
Editor, Under the Sun
UndertheSun1996 at gmail.com
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