Submissions for the 2021 Edition

Submissions for the 2021 edition of The Lit are now open. Submissions will close on Friday, March 19, 2021. Finalists will be notified in the spring 2021 semester and published in the online journal. For the 2021 edition, we’re only accepting work by active LaGuardia Community College students. 

You may only submit to one genre. See the guidelines for what we’re looking for and submit below, via GoogleForms. Contact us at submissions.thelit@gmail.com with any questions. 

What we’re looking for

Flash Fiction -1 piece, 1,000 words max. 

Flash Creative Nonfiction – 1 piece, 1,000 words max.

Both flash fiction & flash creative nonfiction pieces should be complete stories/narratives that can stand on their own — no excerpts from longer stories, novels, nonfiction narratives, or memoirs, please, unless you’ve somehow re-shaped them to work as solo pieces.

Poetry – up to 3 poems max, 5 pages total max. We’re also open to hybrid forms that incorporate art and/or digital media, and experimental work.

Visual or Digital Art –  photo, design, painting, drawing, graphic narratives – 2 works max

What we’re not into

Bigotry of any kind. We don’t dig racism, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, graphic violence or sex (the kind that’s only done for shock value), or xenophobia.

Representation matters. Think about whose story you are trying to tell, and if you are the best one to tell it. Think about whose voices have been marginalized. Consider if you are trying to tell a story, or write a character, that another creator — whose own voice has been marginalized — could tell or know better.

Wait — I’m not familiar with flash. Help!

There’s tons of flash fiction & nonfiction on the web you can read to familiarize yourself. Start with us! Carolyn Merino’s winning piece “The Golden Cage” is flash fiction. Destiny Quiles’ “Saudade” is flash nonfiction.

For additional flash fiction, we recommend checking out SmokeLong Quarterly, Jellyfish Review, Matchbook, Milk Candy Review, wigleaf, MoonPark Review, and Pidgeonholes  — for starters.

For flash nonfiction, head on over to Brevity. Some of the magazines listed above also do flash nonfiction (SmokeLong Quarterly, Jellyfish, and Pidgeonholes for example), and Brevity has a more comprehensive listing of flash nonfiction sources to get you started.

Ready to Submit?