BASIC INFO

Sub­mis­sions for the Fall 2024 Issue of The Account are closed for 2024 as we hit our sub­mis­sion caps in Poet­ry, Fic­tion, and CNF. We will open again in spring 2025. 

Please review our sub­mis­sion guide­lines for poet­ry, fic­tion, and non­fic­tion on Sub­mit­table. Poets may sub­mit up to 5 poems as a sin­gle submission.

We do not charge sub­mis­sion fees.

The Account wel­comes work by BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ writers. 

We are open to a diverse range of styles, includ­ing exper­i­men­tal and hybrid work. The best way to decide if The Account is a good fit for your work is by read­ing the jour­nal online, which is free.

REQUIRED ELEMENTS OF A SUBMISSION

1)    Your work.

2)    An account (approx. 150 to 500 words) to go with your work.

Cov­er let­ters are optional.

We will not con­sid­er any work sub­mit­ted with­out an account, but the account can be changed or rewrit­ten after a piece is accepted.

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SO WHAT IS “AN ACCOUNT” ANYWAY?

We pair each pub­lished poem, sto­ry, or essay with an “account” of it writ­ten by the artist. That’s where the name of our jour­nal comes from.

The account is like a short artist’s state­ment. What to say is up to you, but it should be some­thing you want to tell the reader—a peek behind the cur­tain into your mind or your process while writ­ing this piece. What brought you to the page to cre­ate this?

Some peo­ple use the account to dis­cuss where they got the idea and the for­mal choic­es they made. Oth­ers talk about their per­son­al his­to­ry, cur­rent events, or how this par­tic­u­lar piece relates to a larg­er project. An account might even go in a direc­tion that feels more aca­d­e­m­ic and research-dri­ven. Any/all of these approach­es are great. Poets are wel­come to talk about their poems as a group or write a lit­tle about each poem separately.

Here are three exam­ples, each with a dif­fer­ent approach:

1. Allisa Cherry’s account blends per­son­al details with dis­cus­sion of struc­ture and syn­tax: https://theaccountmagazine.com/article/cherry-2022
2. Jen­nifer Richter’s account explains the inspi­ra­tion for the piece and how it fits into her man­u­script: https://theaccountmagazine.com/article/richter-21
3. Maxwell Suzuki’s account dis­cuss­es his poet­ic inter­ests and talks through the craft of his poem: https://theaccountmagazine.com/article/suzuki-2022/

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POLICIES

Only one sub­mis­sion per writer, please. Any­one who sub­mits more than once dur­ing the read­ing peri­od will have their work dis­qual­i­fied with­out fur­ther review.

If you dis­cov­er a mis­take with your sub­mis­sion, mes­sage us via Sub­mit­table. Do not with­draw and resub­mit. We are not the kind of jour­nal that rejects peo­ple over typos.

Simul­ta­ne­ous sub­mis­sions are fine.

If a piece is accept­ed else­where, please mes­sage us via Sub­mit­table. Unfor­tu­nate­ly it is not pos­si­ble to swap in new pieces for us to read. The rest of your orig­i­nal sub­mis­sion pack­et will remain under consideration.

Authors retain their copy­right and will receive a pub­li­ca­tion con­tract after acceptance.

Our staff works on a vol­un­teer basis, and we are not cur­rent­ly a pay­ing market.

Inter­views, reviews, and art­work oper­ate on a solic­i­ta­tion-only basis.

Gen­er­al inquiries: poet­rypros­ethought — at gmail — dot —com

Fol­low The Account on Twit­ter, Insta­gram, and on Face­book.