Submit Your Work

Submit

*UPDATED January 7, 2025*
The Malahat Review welcomes submissions of poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as translated work in any of these three genres, by new and established writers from Canada and abroad. We particularly welcome submissions from those writers who for reasons of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, geography, class, culture, or religion have been historically under-represented in Canadian literary contexts. The best way to know what kinds of work we might publish is to order a print or digital issue or subscribe.

reading periods

response time

We try our best to get back to writers as soon as possible. Due to the many submissions we receive, please allow for one to six months for poetry and up to nine months for fiction and creative nonfiction.

Submittable

We accept submissions via Submittable only. Please submit your work in a single .doc, .docx, or .pdf file. Please list the word count (for prose) or line count (for poetry) at the beginning of each piece. For regular submissions, make sure your name and contact info appear on the first page. Contest submissions are judged anonymously—no personal info is to be listed anywhere on your contest document.

Click the Submit icon below to access our submission platform on Submittable:
Submittable

cover letter

Ensure the name, mailing address, and email linked to your Submittable account are up to date. If any of this info differs, you can leave a note in the cover letter section. Please list the title(s) of the work submitted and include a short bio note.

once per genre per calendar year

Excluding any of our contests and theme issues, we ask that writers submit only once per genre (poetry, fiction, cnf, translations) in each calendar year. Contest submissions are unlimited, provided you pay the contest fee(s).

previous publication

We don’t publish any work that has previously been published, whether in print or online, even if the print run or online audience was small. No work that has been excerpted elsewhere is eligible for submission, nor is any work that has been revised since its original publication.

simultaneous submissions

For regular submissions, please inform us if you’re making a simultaneous submission, and please update us as soon as possible with any changes to the status of your submission. For contests, we do not accept work simultaneously submitted for consideration elsewhere.

AI?

The magazine’s Editorial Boards are not interested in AI-generated work as such (e.g., machine-written work generated by a prompt). Given the increasing cultural presence and uses of AI, submitters will be asked in Submittable whether AI has been used in the creation of the work being submitted and, if the answer is yes, to explain the extent and nature of its use and what artistic ends it is meant to serve.

poetry—regular submission

Three to five poems (single spaced, up to 10 pages max). Submissions by international (including US) writers are accepted during the following two months: January and May. For contest guidelines, go to the Long Poem Prize, Far Horizons Award for Poetry, or Open Season Awards page.

fiction—regular submission

A single submission (double spaced) of up to 8,000 words for Canadian submitters (up to 4,000 words for stories submitted by international writers) OR one to three shorter fictions of up to 750 words each. Submissions by international (including US) writers are accepted during the following two months: January and May. For contest guidelines, go to the Novella Prize, Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, or Open Season Awards page.

creative nonfiction—regular submission

A single submission (double spaced) of up to 5,000 words OR one or two pieces of up to 1,000 words each. Submissions by international (including US) writers are accepted during the following two months: January and May. Creative nonfiction is literary writing based in fact; style matters no less than substance, whatever form the writing may take (e.g., the personal essay, memoir, biography, travel writing, historical account). We do not accept submissions whose primary purpose is to argue a case, review a literary or artistic work, or to offer an opinion or commentary on someone or something. For contest guidelines, go to the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize or Open Season Awards page.

translations

Although The Malahat Review publishes work by contemporary writers, we will consider translations of work by past writers who are unknown or little known in the English-speaking world and might therefore still be of contemporary interest. For all translations, please include a copy of the original text and, for work still under copyright, a copy of a letter of permission from the copyright holder (whether the original author and/or first-language publisher). The same limits and rules apply to translation submissions as to other submissions.

reviews

We don’t accept unsolicited reviews. If you’re interested in being added to our list of potential reviewers, please email malahatbooks[at]uvic.ca with a sample of previous reviews and a note about which genres/authors/subjects interest you. Due to the limits of space, we normally review work only by Canadian writers and Canadian publishing houses.

payment and copyright

We pay CAD$70 per published page plus a one-year print subscription and two copies of the issue in which your work appears. Contest winners receive a fixed prize instead of a per-page payment (see below for prize amounts). We purchase first world serial print and digital rights for publication in English; copyright remains with the author.

contests