Please read all guidelines before submitting your work. Submissions not adhering to these parameters, in their entirety, will be printed, shredded, and fed to a Shetland Sheepdog named Indie.

Indie is always hungry.

 

*If you would like your submission to be considered for our Short Story Competition, please refer to the contest guidelines.

 

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

Short fiction and memoir. 

We favor work that is honest, true to life, humorous, professionally structured, and engaging the whole way through. If you have an original voice, a creative style, and the prose to back it up, then we would love to read your stuff. Make us laugh, make us cry, and place every word with purpose.            

 

WHAT WE’RE NOT LOOKING FOR:

Genre fiction: romance, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, etc. Your submission should not refer to a chiseled European male with long flowing hair. Your submission should not take place in a magical forest or contain fire-breathing characters that communicate in their own clever tongue. No one should save the world or arrive from another planet in your submission. And your submission should not titillate us with investigative suspense or dramatic twists. We are not judging these genres, but we do not understand them. And we fear what we do not understand. 

Pornography and erotica is also not desired. Passion, sex and love are fine.  Cursing is fine, too. But arousal-type writing as a libido stimulant is not something we want. We’re not judging the adult entertainment industry, but we are not part of it. 

 

EMAIL:

Submissions should be sent to: submissions@bananafishmagazine.com

 

FORMAT:

Submissions should be pasted into the body of an email or attached as a .doc.

Keep it simple: no elaborate fonts, no colors and no pictures.

The title of your submission, followed by your name, email address, and genre, should appear at the top of each email/submission, like this:
            My Amazing Story
            by Happy Writer
            happy@emailaddress.com
            Memoir (or Fiction)  

In the subject line: Place the word “submission” followed by some version of your submission’s title.

An author bio is not necessary when submitting. If your work is accepted for publication, a short bio will be requested at that time. 

    

LENGTH:

Submissions should not exceed 5,000 words, as this represents the limit of our web-based attention span.   

Please do not send more than one story at a time. If you send multiple emails or bulky emails with multiple submissions enclosed, then we will think that you are high-maintenance. And here at Bananafish we are afraid of maintenance, and heights.   

 

WAIT TIME:

Every submission is read, considered, and appreciated. We will try to respond within six weeks. If you do not hear from us by then, feel free to resend. 

 

PAYMENT:

There is no payment at this time. We are professional writers of moderate success and decent education; we no longer understand money and forget what it looks like. In other words, we have none, and therefore have none to give to you. But we will love you eternally, praise you publicly, and tell our grandchildren of your literary genius.

 

~ Submissions accepted year-round ~