TL;DR Genre guidelines for Coastal Shelf are at Submittable and lower down on this page. Every submission will have the option to receive a few notes from the editor, including some other publications that we feel your work might find success at, as well as an option to receive a quicker response without feedback. We want everyone to succeed, and even if Coastal Shelf doesn’t have a place for your piece—there’s a place out there somewhere. We read blind so don’t include your name in the document or in the file name. We nominate pieces for all of the various year-end anthologies we can find—the Pushcart Prize, the multiple Best Americans, Best New Poets, O.Henry and Best of the Net, as well as any others we discover. Quick link to genre-specific guidelines.
We will be having a small reading window to start the new year, and hopefully before that time we will have the rest of the year’s reading schedule set, including our FuPo Contest for “Funny and Poignant” pieces and a prose poem/micro fiction micro-contest.
2022 Submission Windows
NON-CONTEST SUBMISSION WINDOWS:
March 15-31 No Fee submissions
March 15-April 30 Tip-Jar submissions
March 15-April 30 Feature submissions (5-8 poems, 3-5 prose pieces with a 10k word limit, or 1 7-10k word prose piece—$100 payment)
June 1-7 No Fee and Tip-Jar submissions
June 20 Birthday Micro-Window Tip-Jar submissions mini-fundraiser
September 1-7 No Fee and Tip-Jar submissions
CONTEST SUBMISSION WINDOW:
(The FuPo Poetry Contest for funny and poignant poems, and The Ceiling 250 Contest for prose under 250 words) First prize $500 for each contest, all submissions are considered for publication at the regular rate of $30
April 1-30 No Fee submissions (1-2 pieces) only one No Fee submission permitted per author per contest
April 1-30 $7 submissions (1-4 pieces)
May 1-10 $10 submissions (1-4 pieces)
We like surprise here at Coastal Shelf. Not Shyamalanian twists or deus-ex-machinas, but surprises at every level of language. We like to laugh but don’t like groaners—usually. We are ok with scratching our heads a bit at the end of a piece as long as the ride is good. That said, a good “greater observation couched in a short narrative” piece can be a recipe for success, but mostly—surprise us! While we can certainly enjoy taboo subjects, they have to earn their opinion of the topic with splendid writing and ultimately, a reason to address those subjects. Shock for shock’s sake holds no interest to us. We currently pay $30 per piece, or $100 for a feature—the author’s payment rising with the more Pay-it-Forward submissions we receive. We happily accept simultaneous submissions providing you notify us in a timely manner if a piece is accepted elsewhere with a note in Submittable (and if the piece gets published online, send us a link at coastalshelfmagazine@gmail.com with the title “Ones That Got Away” and we’ll link it in that feature of our next issue!)—note, use the “Messages” tab and not the “Notes” tab or we won’t be able to see it.
The best advice we can offer is to read the newest issue! Read all of the pieces in your genre to get a good feel for our aesthetic.
In line with liking surprise, we read blind—only looking at cover letters after reading and deciding upon the piece so DO NOT include your name in the file name or in the document. Submissions will ideally be responded to within 9 months (editor’s note: We are still reading our faces off and hoping to get responses to anyone that submitted over this crazy, crazy summer by the new year), but if you haven’t heard from us within 9 months… we’re still considering your submission. No need to query, sometimes it takes a long time because of our obligations and attempts to live life, but we haven’t forgotten you.
Writers we admire: Too many to name, but a couple dozen or so would be Campbell McGrath, Kurt Vonnegut, Amy Hempel, Li-Young Lee, Russel Edson, James Tate, Barry Hannah, Denis Johnson, Kim Addonizio, Yusef Komunyakaa, Charles Harper Webb, Dorianne Laux, Luis Alberto Urrea, David Kirby, Cormac McCarthy, Tobias Wolff, Stephen Dunn, Frank O’Hara, Tim O’Brien, Lydia Davis, Virgil Suarez, Richard Siken, Dean Young, Kay Ryan, Charles Simic, Jhumpa Lahiri, Steve Kowit, Barbara Hamby, Denise Duhamel, Gaylord Brewer, Emma Bolden, Gerald Locklin, Raymond Carver, Theodore Roethke, Marilyn Chin, Gary Snyder, Flannery O’Connor , T.R. Hummer, D.A. Powell, T.C. Boyle and, oh, I don’t know, how about some W.S. Merwin since we’re doing the initials.
Hard Sells: For poetry: Hard end rhyme (but a well disguised rhyme via enjambment is another story), A preponderance of abstractions, Archaic syntactical inversions. That’s about it. For prose: Bland writing. Straightforward is fine, and genre writing is fine as long as there’s more to it that just a series of events and world building—there should be a ‘point’ or a reason to read the story other than just being a short diversion. As always, edit ruthlessly and send us your best stuff.
Why do you charge? Well, first of all, we don’t charge for all submissions. Every year we have at least a few free reading periods. We want to hear everyone’s voice but we’re also doing this out of a passion for short form creative writing and have day jobs—thus limited time—so please, using the free option submit only once per reading period , excluding special event submission windows.
Additionally, all submissions will receive be eligible to receive a few short notes from the editor about the pieces submitted, and suggestions of writers we think you’d enjoy or other magazines you might try with your writing, because hey, we’re submitting writers too. Even if your piece isn’t for us it might be absolutely perfect elsewhere. A rejection is in no way a value judgement on the piece—it merely doesn’t fit into the vision we have for the current issue/s. Please note: submissions that request feedback will likely take longer than a no-feedback submission.
Genre Guidelines:
(subject to change—the pandemic completely threw everyone for a loop and we received literally thousands of more submissions than we were expecting, that is, on top of what we were expecting. And giving feedback has proven to be even more time-consuming than we’d imagined when setting out on this adventure.)
Short Prose should be under 3000 words, under 2000 is even better. You may submit 1 piece via the free portal (or 2 pieces if they are each under 1000 words), or up to 3 pieces through the tip-jar or Pay-it-Forward portals. If your piece is 3100 words… I mean, first try to tighten the language as much as you can. Make sure every word counts and you don’t use seven where three would do. But after that, I guess it’d be fine. But don’t go over 3100. We care about tight, interesting prose with language that isn’t conspicuous unless that’s the intention.
Long Fiction should be under 6000 words and may only be submitted through the tip-jar or Pay-it-Forward portals. Long fiction isn’t our specialty, but we’re not closed off to it—the process is just more timely for long pieces hence not having a no-fee option. If you have a piece that’s longer that you really want to submit shoot us an email at coastalshelfmagazine |at| gmail.com.
Poetry should be under 80 lines (ish). Submit only 2 poems to the free submission portal, or up to 5 poems for the tip jar or Pay-it-Forward submission portals. We like prose poems, narrative poems, lyrics poems, erasure poems, hybrids, you name it. There’s definitely a soft spot in our hearts for well-worded narrative poems that teach us something new, whether it’s a cool new word or a fun historical or animal fact or a quote or intriguing idea.
Features are ‘folios’ from the same writer which will be published all together, and carry a payment of $100. There should be something that unites the pieces, whether it’s a thematic or stylistic unity. 5-8 poems, 3-5 prose pieces with a 10k word limit, or a single 7-10k word prose piece. If it’s a little longer than 10k that is ok, but no more than like 12k.
Tidepools is an occasional feature of very short works, 25 words and under. These are submitted via the normal portals, and publication in the Tidepools feature pays $10.
Hybrid/Unclassifiables should adhere to fiction rules for submissions.
Waterlogged Paper is the category for pieces which have been published in print but do not appear online. There are hundreds of little print journals, some popping up and disappearing in the same year. We’d like to give pieces published in those great, but short-lived and not widely-circulated magazines a second life online. Waterlogged Paper publication pays $10.
Rights and Payment
Coastal Shelf acquires first-time North American electronic rights for work published in Coastal Shelf Magazine as well as anthology rights to reprint the work in print for up to five years with an additional payment of 2 copies of the printed anthology. Coastal Shelf pays a minimum of $30 per piece published.
