driftwood

In 2013, Driftwood began as a quarterly literary magazine; in the decade+ since, we've evolved into a full press. Our literary magazine evolved with us, becoming an annual anthology—full-color and over 200 pages each year. Our annual anthology releases on the final Tuesday of March, both online & in print. Submissions to the anthology are open year-round in one form or another. Please see the below information to learn which submission option is best.

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Open Submission Timelines

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Fiction 

• Premium Fiction (one week responses): February & August

• Adrift Short Story Contest (Judged): March - July

• In-House Short Story Contest: September  - January

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Poetry

• Premium Poetry (one week responses): Open Year-round

• In-House Single Poem Contest: September  - January

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Art, Photography, & Comics

• Open Year-round

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​Guidelines

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​Fiction

Guidelines are dependent on your submission category. For the Adrift Short Story contest, click here. For the In-House Short Story Contest, click here. 

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Premium Fiction Submission Guidelines

This is the Premium Fiction submission category, where you can receive an extremely quick, roughly one-week response & one of our books mailed to your U.S. home. This category is only open two months per year, and unlike the other fiction categories, only one editor considers your submission (though this judge is almost always the Managing Fiction Editor). At Driftwood Press, we understand that an artist's time is precious, and we are happy to provide this service for our submitters. The fee does not guarantee that your piece will be accepted. We judge each work fairly and with the same reverence we would want our own work to be judged with. Please also note that you will not be refunded if you withdraw before the week is over. Finally, we thank you for choosing this option of submission. We are truly excited to find the greatest fiction in the most effective, timely manner possible.

• Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please update your submission to "withdrawn" within Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere.

• Our stories share little in common outside of a love of language; well-crafted sentences and a honed rhythm are a must for Driftwood contributors.

• We stray away from young adult, fantasy, romance, uncontained novel chapters, and mainstream mystery fiction. While we're interested in experimentalism and stream of consciousness (not auto-writing), we do expect a story to have narrative momentum. Oftentimes, we're drawn to stories with a hint of surrealism, but we publish a little bit of every genre.

• Writers may submit one piece of prose per submission, no longer than 5,000 words.

• Please use single spacing and make sure the document is '.doc' or '.docx' file type.

• Please do not submit PDFs. ​

• Normal submissions are open during the months of February and August.

• We pay $200 for stories accepted through this category.

• You may submit to our short story contests Sept-Jan & Mar-July.

• We read submissions blind.

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Poetry

Guidelines are dependent on your submission category. For the In-House Single Poem Contest, click here.

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Premium Poetry Submission Guidelines

This is the Premium Poetry submission category, where you can receive an extremely quick, roughly one-week response & one of our books mailed to your U.S. home. At Driftwood Press, we understand that an artist's time is precious, and we are happy to provide this service for our submitters. The submission fee does not guarantee that your piece will be accepted. We judge each poem fairly and with the same reverence we would want our own work to be judged with. Finally, we thank you for choosing this option of submission. We are truly excited to find the greatest poetry in the most effective, timely way possible. Poems accepted before October of each year will appear in the coming year's anthology.

• You can submit up to five poems. Please—and we can't stress this enough—make for sure you include all poems in a single submission.

• Whether you are seasoned or a beginner brimming with poetic inspiration, we call upon your abilities. At Driftwood, we are devoted to finding poetry of the highest caliber; we seek poetry of literary importance.

• Some of our favorite poets are T.S. Eliot, Carolyn Hembree, Adrienne Rich, and Allen Ginsberg.

• Overly romanticized, antiquated, or colloquial poetry is not our focus.

• Experimental forms and content that reveal your unique style are welcomed.

• Poets can submit up to five poems, each being no longer than 60 lines.

• When submitting, please send all poems in a single document.

• We read all submissions blind, so please remove any identifying information from your manuscript.

• Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please update your submission to "withdrawn" within Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere.

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Art, Photography, & Comics

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• Individual graphic works may range from a single image to twenty-two pages of comic art.

• Please submit no more than five photographs unless they are in a series, in which case you may send up to twenty.

• Please send us the highest resolution possible for any visual art submission; a work may be denied simply on the grounds that the resolution is not high enough for publication.

• Upon acceptance, we may ask for a specific file type to publish with.

• If your work does not have a title, please label it 'Untitled'. ​

• We can serialize longer graphic works, but the first chapter of the work and a series outline must be presented before serialization is promised. If we accept your series, we will publish individual chapters of no more than twenty-two pages in each issue.

• Some of our favorite graphic artists are Olivier Schrauwen, Jaime Hernandez, Brecht Evens, Linnea Sterte, Freddy Carasco, Sam Alden, Anders Nilsen, Andy Barron, Taiyo Matsumoto, Inio Asano, Mat Brinkman, Michael DeForge, David Lapham, David Mazzucchelli, Antoine Cosse, & Dash Shaw.