CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW is published twice per year, under the auspices of the Department of English at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and with partial funding from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. We consider submissions for our Winter/Spring issue (always a general issue) from February 1 through April 30. From August 1 through October 31, we only consider submissions for our Summer/Fall special issue (check our Call for Submissions Page for information on the upcoming special issue). Both deadlines are postmark deadlines. It is never necessary to Express Mail, Fedex, or UPS any submission to CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW.
Please submit only one piece at a time during each submission period and submit work that is appropriate for the issue we are reading for at the time. If your submission is not held by one of three editors for a later round of consideration, it will be returned to you as soon as possible. After you receive your response from us, you are welcome to submit again for that issue or to wait for the next submission period. Authors may expect a response within five months, with one to three months being the usual turnaround. If we have your work longer than five months, it has made the final round of work being considered for publication in the next issue.
If you send work during the Fall that is not appropriate for the upcoming special issue (this year our special issue is on the topic "The In-Between Age ~ Writers on Adolescence"), we will return it to you as soon as our editor, Allison Joseph, has logged the work in. She will let you know about the special issue we are reading for at the time and remind you of the reading period in the Spring for our general issue. We do not backlog accepted work as a policy at CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW.
Please observe the following rules in submitting work to CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW:
Fiction: All fiction should be typed, double spaced, and paginated. The author's name, address and phone number should appear on the manuscript. Do not submit more than one story per submission. Stories should be twenty-five pages or less. Novel excerpts are acceptable, as long as they stand on their own as fiction. We are open to all styles of fiction and plan to include eight to ten stories in every issue. In the Winter/Spring issue each year, CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW publishes the winner of the Jack Dyer Fiction Prize.
Poetry: All poems should be typed, single spaced, with the author's name, address, and phone number on each poem. Do not submit more than six poems. We are open to all styles of poetry and plan to include 40 to 50 poems in each issue. Find out here about the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. In the Winter/Spring issue each year, CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW publishes the winner of the Richard Peterson Poetry Prize.
Creative Nonfiction: We are happy to consider submissions of creative nonfiction. We publish non-academic explorative essays of twenty-five pages or less, including memoirs, vignettes, and essays on identity and culture. In the Winter/Spring issue each year, CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW publishes the winner of the John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize.
Interviews: Query regarding interviews prior to sending them.
Payment: Payment for accepted work is twenty dollars per published magazine page (fifty US dollars minimum for poetry, one hundred US dollars minimum for prose). Accepted authors will also receive two copies of the issue in which their work appears, as well as a year's subscription to CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW Payment will be made upon publication.
General Submission Policies: Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with all submissions, or they will not be returned. Simultaneous submissions are considered and welcomed. We do not wish to limit the opportunities an author might wish to explore while we are working on our issues. Please inform us if submitted work is no longer available for first publication. We will not consider previously published material. CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW DOES NOT CONSIDER ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS AND WE DO NOT REJECT WORK VIA E-MAIL.