Submission Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

CONTESTS

Sonora Review will be announcing our 2024 contest soon.

GeneralSonora Review is currently OPEN for general submissions.

Sonora Review accepts submissions in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

The editors aim to respond to manuscripts in a timely fashion, and ask that you wait a minimum of nine months to send follow-up inquiries. Please send inquiries by email to editors@sonorareview.com and include the phrase “Submissions Inquiry” in your subject line.

Please submit to general submissions only once every six months.

You may submit to both contests and general submissions simultaneously with different content.

Print vs. online publication

Our default is to consider all submissions for both print and online publication. All accepted pieces are guaranteed online publication, but they may not appear in print. 

Reprints and simultaneous submissions

We only accept original/unpublished work generated by human beings.

Let us know if you are simultaneously submitting. If your work is accepted elsewhere, we ask that you withdraw promptly on Submittable. Poets may withdraw individual poems by leaving a message on the submission manager (Submittable) stating the title of the poem(s) to be withdrawn. Please do not email us with withdrawal notifications.

Submission fee

There is a reading fee for general and contest submissions. Sonora Review is run entirely by graduate-student volunteers in the MFA program at the University of Arizona. Your payment goes directly towards production of the journal and technology fees.

Editorial practices

Sonora Review’s editorial board and designers get swapped out every year. The effect of this ever-evolving nucleus of staffers is a shelfful of motley journal spines, each boasting its own aesthetic. Our hope is that our contributors are as disparate as our taste-testers. If you didn’t get published in 1996, try again; the grumpy alum are long gone.

We welcome previously unpublished work from writers of all backgrounds and identities, including people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people, members of religious minorities, people outside the United States, and all others whom traditional publishing has historically excluded. We believe your stories are valid stories (regardless of whether it centers issues related to being part of a marginalized group), and we want to consider your work!

Submission requirements

All submissions listed below should be submitted through our Submittable site.

PROSE (Fiction / Nonfiction) should be typed, double-spaced, and include page numbers. We are unable to read prose submissions that exceed 5,000 words. In your submission, please include a cover letter with your name, address, phone number, and email in the header, and a brief biography.
We are open to all styles and genres of prose, especially including hybrid and experimental work.

FLASH PROSE (Fiction / Nonfiction) should be typed, double-spaced, and include page numbers. We accept flash prose up to 750 words. In your submission, please include a cover letter with your name, address, phone number, and email in the header, and a brief biography.
We are open to all styles and genres of prose, especially including hybrid and experimental work.

POETRY (Up to 5 poems per submission) should be typed and submitted in one document, with the titles separated by commas in the “Submission Title” field. You may abbreviate the titles if they do not fit. In your submission, please include a cover letter with your name, address, phone number, and email in the header, and a brief biography.

TRANSLATIONS (Fiction / Nonfiction / Poetry) should follow the guidelines of their respective genre above. In your cover letter, please include a brief note about your possession of rights, permissions, and/or public domain status regarding your translations. Please also include two biographies in your Submittable submission, both your own biography as well as the translated writer’s biography. 

TO SUBMIT

Sonora Review accepts online submissions through Submittable.

Please note: With the exception of writers who are incarcerated, we no longer accept print submissions by mail.