Welcome. This page provides detailed general guidance for anyone wishing to submit one or more pieces of their work (prose and/or poetry) to us for potential inclusion in the (quarterly) GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology.

We will:

  • Provide additional theme-specific guidelines for each anthology issue in an announcement post accessible via the submissions tag and latest or featured posts sections on this site. This will...
  • Trigger an email to site members to announce a submissions opening.
  • In addition, we will advertise the opening of the anthology submissions window on selected social media channels (Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Mastodon).

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The submission process: a simple overview

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The submissions process: the nitty-gritty, detailed stuff!

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  • Each issue of the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology will be theme-specific, following unanimous agreement by the editorial team.
  • Non-member submissions are welcome; we encourage non-members to sign up as free members of our website, so becoming part of our growing online community of like-minded readers and writers.
  • Although UK-based, GossamerWight Literary Magazine and has an international reach. We invite global membership and participation.
  • The communication medium is English. Submissions must be in English.
  • You must be eighteen years of age or over at the time of your submission(s).
  • We accept submissions by email only, as described later in this post.
  • The announcement bar visible at the top of all site pages will publicise every new anthology submissions opening, and ongoing related messages, until we close the submissions window.

What we'd like from you

The GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology is primarily intended to serve the needs of the lay writer who, despite lacking professional writing qualifications or expert writing knowledge, approaches their writing with professionalism and seriousness and wishes to see their work published in a literary magazine.

We also accept submissions from university undergraduate and postgraduate students of English literature and/or creative writing, and from established authors (of any genre) who wish to make a prose or poetry submission relevant to the current anthology theme.

Our ethos is to maintain a literary magazine and culture that represent the gamut of lived experience, honouring the diverse backgrounds and stories of writers who align with our interests and values, to which end we encourage submissions from all without condition, except those stipulated within our general and theme-specific submission guidelines.

(a) What we can accept from you

  • New theme-appropriate prose and/or poetry (up to 3 pieces per anthology).
  • Any recent or older theme-appropriate prose and/or poetry piece(s) you have written. Rummage through your attic or basement storage boxes, electronic folders, or other repository, fish out your stories or poetry, dust them down, tidy the prose, grammar and spelling as necessary, and submit.
  • If you are a self-published author of either a physical book or ebook and wish to submit a theme-appropriate, self-contained extract from either, then we will consider your submission(s) for potential inclusion in the anthology.
  • This condition also applies to work you may have published on a website to which you hold the exclusive ownership and operating rights.
  • Similarly, if you hold creator rights elsewhere, e.g., you had a piece of work accepted to and included in an anthology, like ours, then we will consider it. If accepted for our anthology, we would want to cite the original publisher.

In the United Kingdom, you own the copyright to your creative work and receive automatic legal protection and rights. Visit the Gov.UK page here for more information.

We advise non-UK residents to verify the copyright laws of their respective countries to ensure their submissions to the GossamerWight Literary Magazine and anthology are protected. International agreements could protect you, such as the Berne Convention.

You hold the copyright of the story/stories/poetry you submit to us; GossamerWight Literary Magazine holds the in toto anthology compilation copyright.

In making your submission(s) to the GossamerWight Literary Magazine, you agree to grant us full editorial and production rights to your submission(s) to enable us to (1) publish your submission(s) in the anthology, and (2) to help publicise our literary magazine and anthology through our social media channels. We agree not to use your intellectual property for any other purpose without your informed consent.

Please email us (ghost.harmony854@passmail.net) or complete the contact form here should you have copyright questions.

(b) What we cannot accept

  • We will accept nothing you do not hold the copyright to, even if created by you. This prevents potential litigation issues. Copyright law is a complex, specialised area; we would wish no one to fall foul of it, ourselves included!
  • We are firm believers in respecting the intellectual property rights of creators and would not accept submissions that appear to infringe others' copyright.
  • Submissions sent by you that are not in keeping with the anthology theme or that you send after the submission window closes we will exclude.
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(c) Submission types

We will consider:

  • Flash fiction.
  • Short stories.
  • An extract from a longer work (e.g., from a novel).
  • Graphic short stories (that comprise panels containing all the elements typically combined within a graphic story. See our article here for one example), and
  • Poetry.
  • All submission types should be self-contained (e.g., demonstrate a full story arc in the case of prose submissions) and must be in keeping with both the generic and theme-specific submission guidelines for that issue of the anthology.

(d) Length, format, and process

  • Send your submission(s) as either a Microsoft Word or Apple Pages document.
  • We would prefer the use of either of the following fonts for submissions: Arial, Baskerville, Garamond, Georgia, or Times New Roman. For prose, body font point size 12. One-and-a-half or double line spacing, with standard margins, to allow for ease of reading by the judges. For poetry, point size 12 with normal line spacing and standard margins.
  • Graphic short story text should be readable with ease within the dimensions we use for our compact anthology, these being 5.5 x 8.5 inches (140 x 216 mm)– were it printed–a popular trim size in the US known as Half Letter. We will reduce the size of your graphic story panels to fit our anthology dimensions, as necessary. Compare the size of our anthology and an A4 sheet of paper below.

Anthology and A4 paper sizes compared.

  • Prose submissions word count: flash fiction up to 1,000 words. Short stories up to 3,000 words.
  • There is no (current) minimum word count for graphic short stories, but words and graphic images combined in panel format should fit the dimensions we have shown above to avoid the need to downsize, which might compromise clarity. We are currently allowing 4 to 6 pages for graphic short stories, but may increase or decrease this allowance for future anthology issues.
  • Poetry submissions should not exceed 2,000 words. There is no minimum word count.
  • With the exception of graphic short stories, artwork and images should not be included with submissions.
  • Email your submission(s) to: ghost.harmony854@passmail.net, ensuring you write SUBMISSION: THEME (state here the issue theme name) in the subject line. In the email body, provide your surname then forename, the title(s) of your submission piece(s), and a brief account of what inspired your piece(s). Please include a short writer bio, which may also include social media and professional website links. You may also use the contact form here for your submission.
  • Please highlight anything about your submission(s) that might require a trigger warning to be shown in the anthology.
  • Name the file you attach to your email in the format: Surname-Forename-Title.
  • We allow up to three submissions (prose and/or poetry) per anthology issue, all in keeping with the generic and theme-specific guidelines. Each has an equal chance of acceptance.
  • Were you to miss the submission deadline, worry not! Contact the editor-in-chief to ask whether we might accept your piece as a guest post on the GossamerWight Literary Magazine website.
  • We will acknowledge receipt of all submissions received during the open submission window and later notify all writers of the outcome of their submission(s), as described below. Our editorial team is small, so if you are unsuccessful, we may be unable to provide feedback or otherwise correspond with you about your submission(s) beyond the fact that you were unsuccessful on that occasion.
  • We advise you to email seeking clarification about any submission matter that remains unclear to you after reading the general and theme-specific guidelines and before you make your submission(s).
  • Once the submission window has closed, the editorial team will read and discuss each submission in full. We will immediately reject any submissions that have not satisfied the submission criteria. All remaining submissions will pass to phase two. From these, we will make a long list, from which successful submissions will pass to phase three, the shortlist. The editorial team will then choose the final stories and poetry pieces to be published in that issue of the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology.
  • We will email (first) all who make it to the final selection stage and then email all who were unsuccessful.
  • As soon as we publish the latest issue of the anthology on our website, we will compile a post/email announcement (the email component for site members only) to announce the publication. We will also announce the publication of the anthology on our social media channels.
  • The anthology will be available as a free download in a professional print-ready PDF format, and as a generic ePub.
  • The decision of the editorial team is final.
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(e) Payment matters

There is no charge for submitting one or more pieces of your work for potential inclusion in the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology. Neither will it cost you anything to download current or past issues of the anthology from this site.

We cannot offer payment at this time to those who make one or more successful submissions for inclusion in any issue of the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology. However, contingent on the success of our quarterly anthology releases, we envisage taking the best stories from each and combining them in an annual publication; this would be available to buy in the usual online and high street outlets. 🐾

Questions?

Email the editor-in-chief using ghost.harmony854@passmail.net. Please state 'Submission query' in the subject line. Alternatively, complete the contact form here.

[Header image credit: Yusuf Evli from Unsplash].

Date created: 28 August 2025. Date revised: 13 October 2025.

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