Submissions are now OPEN.
Published four times per year, Grain is an internationally acclaimed literary journal that publishes engaging, surprising, eclectic, and challenging writing and art by Canadian and international writers and artists.
Before submitting your work to Grain, we recommend you read a recent issue of the magazine. The latest issue of Grain is available to order by clicking here.
To help Grain support writers of diverse communities and identities, we encourage applicants to self-declare if they identify as a writer who is a member of group or groups experiencing marginalization and underrepresentation. (i.e. Black, Indigenous, or Person of Colour, 2SLGBTQ+, or Disability).
Please adhere to the following guidelines. Do not submit more than once and in one genre only (subsequent submissions will neither be read nor returned). Due to the high number of submissions, we are only able to publish one submission per author per volume year. If you have work currently under consideration by Grain, please do not submit again until you have received a response. Grain has a nine-month submission period that runs from September 15th to June 15th. Manuscripts received outside of this window will be automatically rejected.
Send typed, unpublished material only (we consider work published online to be previously published). If work is submitted simultaneously, please let us know as soon as possible if it is accepted elsewhere. Please only submit work in one genre at one time.
Poetry: Individual poems, sequences, or suites up to a maximum of 6 pages.
Fiction: To a maximum of 3500 words.
- You may submit ONE work (of no more than 3500 words), OR up to THREE works (i.e., micro-fiction, flash fiction) that together total a maximum of 3500 words.
- If your work exceeds the word limit, consider sending an excerpt.
Literary Nonfiction: To a maximum of 3500 words.
- If your work exceeds the word limit, consider sending an excerpt.
Other writing: Queries for submissions of work in other forms (i.e. short plays, comics, translations, etc.) are welcome. You may submit such queries through Submittable or by email.
Visual work: Mainly by invitation, though queries are welcome by artists living in Canada only.
All contributors, regardless of genre, are paid $50 per page to a maximum of $250, plus two copies of the issue in which their work appears. Visual work published inside the magazine (in black and white) and on the cover (in colour) is paid at the same page rate as text contributions to a maximum of $500.
Note for International Contributors (outside of Canada): We make every effort to make the payment process as smooth as possible for those published in our magazine. Due to various reasons, at this time, we can only offer payment by PayPal and cheque. Cheques are issued in Canadian dollars.
Grain purchases First North American Serial Rights and First Digital Publication Rights only. Copyright remains with the writer or artist.
You may submit your work through online through Submittable or by mail. We do not accept emailed submissions.
Before submitting, please ensure that your work adheres to the following:
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Submissions must follow industry formatting standards: typed in readable font (ideally 12 point, Times New Roman), double-spaced for prose, and free of typos. Pieces of more than one page must be numbered. For mailed submissions, print on one side only. No staples.
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Send mailed submissions to:
Editor, Grain Magazine, PO Box 3986, Regina, SK, S4P 3R9, Canada -
Mailed submissions can only be returned if you include a SASE of appropriate size for your writing with sufficient Canadian/International/US postage included. Or, if you'd like to save on postage and paper, we will reply by email if you provide an email address for that purpose only. Submissions that do not include one of these reply methods will not be read or returned.
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Please include a cover letter with all contact information, title(s) and genre of work you are submitting, and a total page and word count. A brief bio is highly recommended.
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Submissions that do not adhere to the guidelines will not be considered for publication.
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Please note, we do not publish the same author twice in the same year.
- All work must be original, and human-generated, from start to finish. We do not accept submissions of any kind that were written, developed, or assisted by AI tools such as ChatGPT.
Response time is typically within six months.
Please visit https://grainmagazine.submittable.com/submit.
We have a monthly Submittable cap, and if we reached the said cap, online submissions will be closed until the following month. If you’d like to submit but our account is full, you can either submit by mail or wait until the 1st of the following month.
NOTE for International Submitters (currently living outside of Canada): Beginning September 15, 2024, writers submitting from outside of Canada will incur a $5.00 CA reading fee.
