WRITING

Material may be in any style or form, or combination of forms.

Maximum: five poems, two short stories or essays, OR one longer piece of up to 5,000 words. We also accept book reviews; please contact Julie Enszer with your pitches.

Please proofread your work carefully; do not send us changes after the deadline.

Please send a short contributor biography between 25 and 125 words with your submission.

Sinister Wisdom acquires first North American serial rights for all work that we publish. By acquiring first North American serial rights, authors guarantee that publication in Sinister Wisdom will be the first publication in North America. That is, the work has not appeared previously in another journal, in a book, online, or in other forms of publication. In rare instances, Sinister Wisdom will reprint work that has been previously published. Authors should discuss with the editor and publisher PRIOR to submission.

Many questions about rights are answered here: https://www.pw.org/content/copyright

We STRONGLY prefer that you submit your work through Submittable, our online submission management system. Using Submittable ensures that both of our editors have an opportunity to see and consider your work and helps us ensure a timely response to your submission. If you CANNOT use Submittable for some reason (you are incarcerated, for instance, or you do not have internet access), please see the guidelines below.

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ART

We use three pieces of full-color visual art each year for the cover of the journal. We invite visual artists to submit .jpg or .gif files of their work for consideration through Submittable.

If your work is selected, you will have to provide us high-quality .tiff files to print the cover.

We print black and white images in the pages of the journal and invite artists to submit black and white images as .jpg or .gif files for consideration. Again, if work is selected, you will have to provide us with high-quality.tiff files to print inside the pages of the journal.

Submit to Sinister Wisdom

IF YOU CANNOT SUBMIT ONLINE

We prefer you type your work but short legible handwritten pieces will be considered; tapes accepted from print-impaired women.

If sent by mail, material must be mailed flat (not folded) with your name and address on each page. Send to: Julie R. Enszer, Editor, Sinister Wisdom, 2333 McIntosh Road, Dover, FL 33527.

Enclose a self-addressed, stamped business-sized envelope for a response. If you do not enclose a self-address, stamped envelop for a response, your submission will be recycled.

Remember:
We publish only Lesbians’ work. We are particularly interested in work that reflects the diversity of our experiences: as lesbians of color, multiracial lesbians, ethnic lesbians, Jewish lesbians, Arab lesbians, old lesbians, young lesbians, working class lesbians, poverty class lesbians, genderqueer lesbians, butch lesbians, masculine of center lesbians, androgynous lesbians, femme lesbians, trans lesbians, disabled lesbians, and fat Lesbians. We welcome experimental work, such as graphic narratives and photo essays. We will not print anything that is oppressive or demeaning to lesbians or women or that perpetuates stereotypes. Please contact us if you have a new theme you would like to see explored.

Submit to Sinister Wisdom