The Louisville Review publishes two issues each year.
There is no fee to submit fiction, poetry, or poetry by young writers in grades K-12 for our Cornerstone section.
The general call for Fiction and Poetry for TLR #100 is open September 21-26, 2026, or until caps for those genres have been met (please see full submission guidelines below).
The call for Cornerstone for TLR 100 is open September 21 - October 31, 2026.
GUEST FICTION EDITOR Angela Jackson-Brown is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, and the Director of Creative Writing at Indiana University Bloomington. She also teaches in the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of Drinking From a Bitter Cup, House Repairs, When Stars Rain Down, The Light Always Breaks, Homeward, and Untethered. House Repairs won the 2021 Alabama Library Association Poetry Award. When Stars Rain Down was a finalist for the 2021 Langum Prize, longlisted for the Granum Foundation Award, and shortlisted for the 2022 Indiana Authors Award. Homeward was shortlisted in 2024.
GUEST POETRY EDITOR Julia Johnson, a native of New Orleans, earned a B.A. from Hollins College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow. She has taught at Hollins University, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, The Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi and at the University of Kentucky, where she was the founding director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. Johnson is the author of Naming the Afternoon, published by Louisiana State University Press, which won the George Garrett Fellowship of Southern Writers New Writing Award, The Falling Horse, published by Factory Hollow Press, and most recently Subsidence. She served as editor of Mississippi Review, including a special issue on The Prose Poem, as well as an anthology, 30 years of Mississippi Review. She edited The Collected Poems of Jane Gentry. Her poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Poetry International, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Conduit, Tin House, and numerous other journals and anthologies. Johnson is Professor of Creative Writing and English and teaches in the MFA Program at Old Dominion University.
GUIDELINES:
SUBMIT ONCE, IN ONE GENRE, PER ISSUE
Unpublished work only. This includes online publications, such as Substack.
We do not accept work made with the assistance of any form of AI.
Special Categories for TLR 100:
Long-Form Fiction: Submissions of approximately 4,000 - 7,000 words. The Louisville Review aims to be a home for long-form fiction! For our 100th issue we're reading a limited number of longer stories. Capped at 50 submissions.
Fiction: Submissions of Fiction / Flash Fiction / Hybrid Prose submissions of up to 3,500 words. Send us your standard, short, and flash fiction! This category is also open to experimental, lyrical, or hybrid short prose. While we do not read unsolicited creative nonfiction at this time, we welcome work that is fictive but does not fit neatly into the fiction genre. Please note we cannot print in color or print images. Capped at 100 submissions.
Poetry: Submit up to five poems. Please be sure all poems are in a single document before uploading. Each page should include complete contact information for the author. Translations are welcome if permission has been granted by the original author.
Cornerstone: Submissions of poems by students in grades K-12. The Louisville Review accepts submissions of previously unpublished poetry from students in grades K-12 for publication in our Cornerstone section. Cornerstone submissions must be accompanied by parental permission to publish if accepted.
ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES
Returning Cornerstone Contributors: We enthusiastically welcome submissions from previous TLR Cornerstone contributors! However, if you have had work accepted in Cornerstone please wait two issues before submitting again.
Returning Contributors: We enthusiastically welcome submissions from previous TLR contributors! However, if you have had work accepted in the general call for either Poetry or Fiction in the last two years please wait four issues from publication before submitting again in that genre.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted: Any work accepted elsewhere must be withdrawn immediately.
Withdrawals: Entire submissions can be withdrawn by logging into Submittable. For partial withdrawals (single poems, for example) message us via Submittable.
If your work is selected for publication: We provide one complimentary print copy of The Louisville Review to our U.S. based contributors with a discount on additional copies shipped to the contributor's address. International contributors receive a digital copy of t issue.
Have any questions you’d like to ask before submitting? Send us an email at editor@louisvillereview.org.
The general submission window for Cornerstone for our upcoming issue, The Louisville Review Number 100, is open September 21 - October 31, 2026.
Cornerstone: Submissions of poems by students in grades K-12. The Louisville Review accepts submissions of previously unpublished poetry from students in grades K-12 for publication in our Cornerstone section. Cornerstone submissions must be accompanied by parental permission to publish if accepted.
Please upload your submission as of up to five poems with title(s) in one document that includes a short third person bio (3-6 sentences). Please submit only .doc or .docx files.
IMPORTANT: Your bio must include your current grade (K-12). The Louisville Review's Cornerstone section is EXCLUSIVELY for young writers in grades K-12, and poems submitted without a bio that verifies that the submitter meets this qualification will not be considered.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted: Any work accepted elsewhere must be withdrawn immediately.
Withdrawals: Entire submissions can be withdrawn by logging into Submittable. For partial withdrawals (single poems, for example) message us via Submittable.
If your work is selected for publication, we provide one complimentary print copy of The Louisville Review to our U.S. based contributors, with a discount on additional copies sent to the contributor's address. International contributors will receive an electronic copy of the issue.
We accept only unpublished work. We do not accept work created with the assistance of any form of AI.
Response time is 8-10 weeks.
Have any questions you’d like to ask before submitting? Send us an email at editor@louisvillereview.org.
Please Note: This is a submission portal for Ariel XXXVIII, the annual print journal produced by the Ariel Literary Society of Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. In order to submit, you must be affiliated with the Bellarmine University community in some manner. Current students, faculty, staff, and alumni are welcome to submit!
Founded in 1989 as the Friendly English Society, Ariel’s purpose is to promote the literary and artistic expression of the Bellarmine community. Every spring semester, the club releases a (free) literary magazine containing student, faculty, and staff work from all genres, including poetry, prose, short story, screenwriting/playwriting, photography, painting, and more.
Our window for submission is open through January 15, 2027. Be advised that you may submit as many pieces as you like but we usually don't accept more than 3 pieces per person for each submission type.
EACH SUBMISSION SHOULD ONLY INCLUDE ONE GENRE OF WORK, but you may submit to multiple genres. Please put the GENRE of your work in the TITLE.
For creative writing works, we prefer you upload .doc or .docx files only.
Our magazine includes a contributors section! So, please include a 1-3 sentence third-person bio in the bio field (the Editors cannot see this during the review process).
All submissions are reviewed anonymously by our student-led editorial board during the spring semester. Submitters will be notified of decisions near the end of the semester.
Each contributor of Ariel XXXVIII will receive up to 2 personal copies of the magazine. These will be handed out at our launch party in the spring. To stay up-to-date with dates and times for the launch party and other fun Ariel events please follow our Engage page and/or our Instagram!
Engage: https://engage.bellarmine.edu/organization/ariel-magazine
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariel.literary?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
SUBMISSIONS OPEN OCTOBER 1 - DECEMBER 31, 2026
THE FLEUR-DE-LIS NOVELLA PRIZE is is a triennial contest seeking work that makes the most of the novella form by balancing scope and scale, maintaining the intensity of short fiction while exceeding the duration of a short story. We welcome all stylistic approaches and aim to publish original narratives for an adult audience that surprise, challenge, and dazzle readers.
JUDGE CYNTHIA REEVES is the author of the novella Badlands, awarded Miami University Press’s Novella Prize. Her novel-in-stories Falling Through the New World won Gold Wake Press’s Spring 2023 Fiction Prize and was a Foreword INDIES finalist for Book of the Year in Literary Fiction. The New York Times called her award-winning Arctic novel The Last Whaler “an engrossing historical novel [that] celebrates . . . an icy landscape filled with enchantment and danger.” A Hawthornden and VCCA Fellow, she’s also received residencies to Arctic as Mirror, ArtsIceland, OU Gallery, Atelier, the Arctic Circle Expedition, Vermont Studio Center, and the Spitsbergen Artists Residency. She taught the novella as a lecturer at Bryn Mawr and Rosemont Colleges, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
• Winner receives $1,000 and book publication through Fleur-de-Lis Press in fall 2027 plus 20 author copies and national distribution online. • All shortlisted manuscripts that remain unpublished will be considered for publication by Fleur-de-Lis Press in 2027 and 2028. • This prize invites writers living in the United States who have not yet published a novella to submit manuscripts of 20,000 – 40,000 words. • Submitting writers may have published books in other prose forms, including novels and short story collections, so long as they have not yet published a novella. • $28 reading fee includes a 1-year print subscription to The Louisville Review. • Fee waiver available upon request. editor@louisvillereview.org • All styles of fiction for an adult audience are welcome in this inclusive contest committed to celebrating the diversity, value, and myriad potentials of the novella form. • TLR editorial team screens submissions for anonymity and adherence to contest guidelines. • Judge reads all submissions blind and selects shortlist and winner. • Simultaneous submissions of manuscripts under consideration by other publishers are eligible; please notify us as soon as possible if your manuscript is accepted by another press. • Excerpts may have been published individually in magazines or anthologies, but the complete manuscript must be unpublished. • Submissions accepted through Submittable only. • We do not accept submissions containing any content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. AI-generated or augmented manuscripts are ineligible.
Open to all university and college students residing in the Louisville, Kentucky Metro area, including southern Indiana, graduate and undergraduate, in all departments and programs. Students enrolled in remote courses at universities outside the area but living in Louisville / southern Indiana are eligible, as are students enrolled at IU Southeast and Ivy Tech Community College, Sellersburg.
Students from all disciplines are encouraged to enter. We enthusiastically welcome entries from writers of all backgrounds, abilities, and identities, including minority, indigenous, and LGBTQ+ writers. We value poetry that draws on diverse perspectives, and we welcome poetry in a variety of registers, modes, and styles. Judge reads all submissions blind, and each poem is judged entirely on its own merit.
• One Winner receives a cash prize of $200 and publication of their winning poem in The Louisville Review. • Two Finalists receive cash prizes of $50. • Two Honorable Mentions will receive a copy of Allen’s poetry collection, The Cruel Radiance of What Is (2019). • All awarded writers will read at the Annette Allen Poetry Prize Celebration Reading at the 54th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture at the University of Louisville, in February, 2027 (date TBD).
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
• Students may submit one manuscript containing 1-5 previously unpublished poems.
• Students from all disciplines are encouraged to write and submit poems—no prior poetry experience is required!
• Students are encouraged to submit poetry that engages the arts and/or humanities. Such poems might incorporate reflections on or, descriptions of, visual art, music, literature, ecology, environment, identity, gender, history, dance, myth, philosophical texts, etc.
• We enthusiastically welcome submissions from writers of all backgrounds, abilities, and identities, including minority, indigenous, and LGBTQ+ writers. We value poetry that draws on diverse perspectives, and we welcome poetry in a variety of registers, modes, and styles. • Judge reads all submissions blind. Entries are evaluated solely on the quality of the work submitted.
• Notifications will be sent to all entrants by the second week of January, 2027.
• All submissions thought Submittable only (Submittable is 100% free to use).
• We do not accept submissions containing any content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. AI-generated or augmented manuscripts are ineligible.