Radical Catalyst Art & Literary Journal

General Guidelines 

Radical Catalyst welcomes and encourages unsolicited submissions of prose (such as poetry, flash fiction, short stories, short memoirs, literary/creative non-fiction, essays/manifestos) and art (both physical and digital, including but not limited to photographs, paintings, comics, and many other forms of art). We also welcome multi-medium and cross-genre pieces. We publish both themed and unthemed issues, subject to time of year. The best way to learn about what we are looking for is to consult our previously published issues, as well as carefully read the relevant section(s) of our genre-specific guidelines. Please consult our guidelines document here for detailed submission guidelines. 

Please only submit one piece in each submission. Submissions including multiple works (excluding photography & art series) will only have the first piece included reviewed. 

Though we limit contributors to a set number of submissions we take for each type of work, we do not enforce a limit on the number of different types of works you may submit for. (For example, you may submit 5 flash fiction pieces and 3 short stories and 5 art pieces, but you may not submit 6 flash fiction pieces or 5 short stories. Any pieces submitted over the limit for each submission type will be automatically rejected.)

All visual pieces must include an artist statement in addition to the work submitted. Please include this as a separate document with your submission.

Written pieces should be typed in Arial or Times New Roman typeface between 10- and 14-point font, double-spaced, and follow the genre guidelines. At the top of each written piece, please include the type of submission and title of the submission. 

Please note that the dimensions of our journal pages are 6 x 9 inches; therefore, we may need to use hanging indentations for long lines in traditional 8.5 x 11 inch poetry pieces. If you do not wish for this to occur, please do not send in pieces with lines longer than 5 inches wide in 10-point font.

Simultaneously submitted works are permitted. If a simultaneously submitted work is accepted elsewhere, please email radicalcatalystjournal@gmail.com immediately to inform us of withdrawal of your piece from consideration and withdraw your submitted piece from your work submission on Submittable (see here for instruction). 

Want information about your publication rights? Review our publication agreement.

Do NOT submit works that:

• Are AI generated (in part or in whole) or were not created by the submitter (this includes pieces that you do not own the copyright for or that use copyrighted elements)
• Are racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, etc. (obviously…)
• Are untitled
• Have been previously published (excluding personal blogs and personal social media pages)

Notification of Acceptance/Rejection

Our response time varies and may take up to a month, particularly during the end of the submission period, when submissions often see an uptick. We are currently a very small team, and we appreciate your patience as we look over all the wonderful works submitted to us.

We are grateful for your interest in Radical Catalyst and look forward to reviewing your submission.