Thanks for taking an interest in submitting. You can send submissions using the form below, or you can email them to submissions@chamberfour.com. Scroll down for guidelines to submit prose, poetry, nonfiction or visual art to our literary magazine; or click here to skip to guidelines for submitting book reviews to our website.
C4 Magazine Submissions
Needs: We are currently looking for submissions in all forms, namely:
- fiction (short stories, flash fiction)
- nonfiction (personal essays, memoir excerpts, travel writing)
- poetry (traditional, experimental)
- digital visual art (anything 2D and static, i.e. pictures, drawings, etc.)
Genres: Our magazine doesn’t have themes, and we’re not strictly opposed to genres, but we prefer literary stories, or stories with literary-quality prose. Check out our first issue and The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology (free downloads) to get an idea of what we like.
Payment: None. Sorry.
Simultaneous submissions: Sure. But if your work is accepted somewhere else, let us know ASAP (and congratulations).
Publication: We’re publishing mag issues twice yearly. Occasionally we’ll be running some pieces on our blog too (they’ll be included in the issue as well).
Reading period: All the time. Our priority reading time for the second issue has closed; submissions will be considered for both issues #2 (Summer 2011) and #3 (Winter 2012).
Response time: Definitely within two months. Probably within one.
Other info to include: When you send us something, please tell us if your piece is fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, etc. (even mention the genre if you’d like), so we can make sure it’s read by an appropriate reader. Include your name and email address with everything you submit.
For artwork: If you are interested in submitting artwork, shoot us an email at submissions@chamberfour.com with the specifications and a brief description of your work, and we’ll arrange a way to check it out. 2-D art only (obviously) and we probably won’t put your work in the ebook version of the magazine with the writing, since that will be black and white and low-res. But we’ll figure something out.
Where to submit: We organize our reading process through Submimshmash, so you can submit directly through them if you’d like. Submissions will be also accepted via email, or via the form below. You can send them, or any questions you might have, to submissions@chamberfour.com.
Other stuff: Only previously unpublished work will be accepted.
C4 Book Review Submissions
First, you might want to read a few reviews and look over what we’re trying to accomplish with them. If you think you have a Great Read candidate on your hands, read the criteria for that.
- Most importantly: Don’t feel like you need to write an academic essay, but try to make it sharp and entertaining. We like smart reviews written for civilians.
- Aim for 500-1000 words (1-5 pages in a word processor), but we’re not too stringent about it.
- Each review should include: The title and author of the book; the publisher and year of publication; ratings on a scale of 10 of Language, Entertainment, and Depth; and two or three books which are similar to the one being reviewed.
- You also have the option to include a fourth rating category. This can be anything you want, but should tell the reader of your review something salient about the book, something the author has either done well or poorly.
- The book you review should have been published relatively recently, within the past year. If the book is older than that, it should be a positive review. So feel free to reread and recommend your favorite books, but it’s not productive to dredge up old books nobody’s heard of and tell people not to read them.
- Our book reviews are for readers; they’re designed to help readers find books they will enjoy, not to help authors sell books. Please don’t submit reviews of your own books, or your friends’ books, or reviews with other ulterior motives.
Submit here
