Welcome. This page provides detailed general guidance for anyone wishing to submit one or more pieces of their work to us for potential inclusion in the 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 the submission opening.
  • In addition, we will advertise the opening of the submission window for the anthology on our social media channels.

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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 have a specific theme that the editor-in-chief, in consultation with their fellow editor(s), will choose.
  • Non-member submissions are also welcome; we encourage non-members to sign up as free members, thereby becoming part of our growing online community of like-minded readers and writers.
  • Although UK-based, GossamerWight Literary Magazine has an international reach. We invite membership and participation from any country... anthology submissions included.
  • The communication medium is English. We cannot accept non-English submissions.
  • 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 submission opening; the message will remain in place until we close the submissions window.

What we'd like from you

We intend the GossamerWight Literary Magazine's anthology primarily to serve 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.

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

  • A new theme-appropriate piece of work.
  • Any recent or older theme-appropriate piece you have written that has not yet seen the light of day. Rummage through your attic or basement storage boxes or electronic folders (or wherever you keep your story gems), fish out your stories, dust them down, tidy the prose, grammar and spelling as necessary, and whizz something off to us.
  • If you are a self-published author of either a physical book or ebook and wish to submit a theme-appropriate 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 a community anthology, like ours, then we will consider it. If accepted for our anthology, we would 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 you submit to us; GossamerWight Literary Magazine holds the in toto anthology compilation copyright, including any copyright- and attribution-free artwork we have sourced and included in the anthology.

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 any more than we would tolerate discoverable instances of plagiarism.
  • 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), and
  • Graphic short stories (that comprise panels containing captions, thought and speech bubbles, and character and scene inking, etc.–all the elements typically combined within a graphic story. See our article here for one example).
  • All submission types should be self-contained, i.e., demonstrate a full story arc, and must be in keeping with both the generic and theme-specific submission guidelines for that issue of the anthology.
  • We are not accepting poetry at this time, but plan to for future anthologies.

(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 prose submissions: Arial, Baskerville, Garamond, Georgia, or Times New Roman. 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.
  • 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: between 100 and 3,000 words (flash fiction up to 1,000 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 vary this for future anthology issues.
  • 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). We also encourage you to consider including a short writer bio. 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 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 cannot 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 ten or more stories to be published in that issue of the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology.
  • We will email all who make it to the final selection stage and then email all who were unsuccessful. At the end of the anthology, space permitting, we will name everyone who made the long list or shortlist.
  • 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 for download in a professional print-ready PDF format, and as a generic ePub.
  • The decision of the editorial team is final, as in all matters.
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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.

(f) The fair use of generative AI

You're not obliged to read this section, but we considered it helpful to include. Scroll to the end as necessary.

Generative AI appears here to stay and is likely to tighten its foothold exponentially. If you have already used a generative artificial intelligence chatbot (AI tool) such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Microsoft Copilot, then you'll know something of their strengths and weaknesses. Whether your view is that AI's use enriches or stifles creativity, one thing is certain–to ensure ethical and responsible use of AI, guidelines are required. Which brings us to submissions intended for the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology.

Guiding principles:

The editorial team (and our site members and visitors) would like to see your writing and hear your voice. Therefore:

  1. Ensure originality: your submission (be it prose, poetry, or graphic short story) should be unique, i.e., reflective of your ideas and voice. It is acceptable to use a generative AI tool as a starting point as described in the next section, 'Examples of fair AI usage,' but this should aid your creative output, not replace it.
  2. We will reject submissions that appear to be AI-generated, whether in whole or in part; the editor-in-chief's determination is final. We will do all that is reasonably practicable to ensure parity and fairness in the submission process, and to protect our reputation and that of our users.
  3. Appreciate AI's limitations: AI-generated content has developed a reputation for being inaccurate or inapplicable, so blind reliance upon its query results is ill-advised. Should you use an AI tool in the ways described in the next section, 'Examples of fair AI usage,' then it is essential you verify the results against one or more reliable non-AI sources, i.e., perform a human test.
  4. We are firm believers in respecting the intellectual property rights of creators and will not accept submissions that appear to infringe others' copyright. The editor-in-chief's determination is final.

Examples of fair AI usage

  1. Ideas creation: use of generative AI tools to kick-start a creative writing submission by exploring ideas is acceptable, and may also assist with plot, character and setting development. However, remember the need for originality in your submission, i.e., the work is yours, not AI's.
  2. Language enhancement: use of generative AI tools after your own (human) editing and proofreading efforts is acceptable, as a secondary check to endorse clarity, style, syntax, grammar, punctuation and spelling. AI may also suggest alternative phrasings and more precise vocabulary choices and help develop critical register.* Two examples of suitable AI tools are Grammarly and ProWritingAid. A word of caution–be consciously engaged with the process, i.e., do not blindly accept what your AI grammar/style checker recommends.
  3. Research aid: AI tools can assist with research for your writing as a secondary (supplementary) resource.
  4. First-level feedback and critique: grammar and style checkers, like Grammarly and ProWritingAid, can provide constructive feedback on your writing drafts, highlighting areas for improvement. As always, be mindful of feedback/critique from these sources, ensuring that the final version for submission is an authentic account of your unique voice and original work.

These guidelines (although comprehensive) on the use of AI for submissions to the GossamerWight Literary Magazine anthology are not exhaustive; we may amend or add to them at any time.

*(Critical what? Read Professor Lennart Nacke's accessible article, 'How to use writing registers' to learn more; it's not an article that will benefit academic writers alone).

Questions?

Please contact the editor-in-chief using your preferred email service provider to send your message to: ghost.harmony854@passmail.net or complete the contact form here. Please state 'Submission query' in the subject line. We plan to automate and streamline the contact process so that our website sends messages directly.

[Header image credit: Image credit: Yusuf Evli from Unsplash]

Date created: 28 August 2025. Date revised: 5 September 2025.

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