Submissions are currently closed.
Submissions to The Harlem Review will open sporadically so we encourage you to be on the lookout on our social media accounts. Any work sent outside of these windows will be discarded unread. We aim to return to all valid submissions within a month.
We’re looking for short stories, traditional poems, prose poems, essays, hybrid things, things that refuse to be named in any way, transcriptions of audio notes sent to an ex in the middle of the night, visual work, love letters, breakup letters, manifestos, city maps redrawn with letters. Send us the thing you found at the bottom of your Notes app that still stings a little. Send us the micro that feels like a cracked streetlight. Send us the lingual experiment you wrote on the subway and edited while waiting for your coffee. We love work that leans into risk, rhythm, humor, sincerity, strangeness, and the soft violence of being alive.
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THE NITTY GRITTY
Submissions to The Harlem Review will open sporadically so we encourage you to be on the lookout on our social media accounts. Any work sent outside of these windows will be discarded unread. We aim to return to all valid submissions within a month.
We’re looking for short stories, traditional poems, prose poems, essays, hybrid things, things that refuse to be named in any way, transcriptions of audio notes sent to an ex in the middle of the night, visual work, love letters, breakup letters, manifestos, city maps redrawn with letters. Send us the thing you found at the bottom of your Notes app that still stings a little. Send us the micro that feels like a cracked streetlight. Send us the lingual experiment you wrote on the subway and edited while waiting for your coffee. We love work that leans into risk, rhythm, humor, sincerity, strangeness, and the soft violence of being alive.
THE NITTY GRITTY
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All submissions should be sent to theharlemreview@gmail.com
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All prose pieces should be kept under 1,000 words; for poetry, feel free to send 1-3 pieces in a single document, kept at a maximum of 5 pages in total. This goes for comic strips too, unless specific formatting is required.
- If you are sending prose under 250 words, you can include up to 3 pieces in your submission so long as they are collected in one document.
- Unless solicited or specifically asked, we consider only previously unpublished material; we do mark any work featured on social media accounts or personal blogs—in part or as a whole—as previously published.
- One submission per person each reading period, across all genres. Please wait to hear back from us before making a new submission. The work submitted to multiple categories will be discarded unread.
- Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but please be kind enough to let us know immediately (theharlemreview@gmail.com) if your piece is accepted for publication by another literary journal.
- All text submissions should be sent in a Word document (.doc or .docx) unless you’re submitting a comic book or a poem with a specific visual treatment, which you can share in a PDF document. Be mindful about using a simple, legible typeface.
- Please don’t forget to include a third-person bio in your cover letter. And please don’t forget to mention which category you’re submitting to.
- Don’t send us anything that promotes bigotry and violence.
- We don’t tolerate abuse toward our staff. Anyone who does so will be blacklisted forever (and be shared with other editors from other journals).
- All rights return to the writer upon publication, but we ask that The Harlem Review is credited if your work is reprinted or republished, like in an anthology or a short story collection.