fiction guidelines
Submit fiction dealing with themes of social change. We like social commentary, but mainly we like good writing. All fiction submissions will receive a fair and thoughtful critique. Fiction over 5000 words will not be read.
We will no longer consider multiple or simultaneous fiction submissions. Multiple story submissions, aside from unfairly increasing our workload, tell us you don't respect your own work. Please decide which of your stories you think is the BEST and send that. We will be more than happy to give it fair consideration. And please don't submit again until we have responded to your first submission. As for simultaneous submissions, we can understand that writers send them because they are frustrated with the often slow turnaround time from many magazines and journals. Please be assured that our turnaround is much faster. Generally, you can expect to hear back regarding your fiction submission in no more than one month, but more often you'll hear back in a week or a day or sometimes even an hour. If you catch us at the right time, it might take a matter of minutes. A fiction submission that is accepted for publication will be published within three to six months of when it is submitted.
Please e-mail (preferred) no more than one story at a time to the Fiction Editor, or submit via postal mail to:
Fred Schepartz, Editor
Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
149 Talmadge
Madison, WI 53704
poetry Guidelines
Submit poetry dealing with themes of social change. We have a marked distaste for prosaic didacticism (but a weakness for prose poems). Do not submit poems by postal mail; if you are reading this, you have access to the internet. Please do not submit work that has appeared elsewhere online. Poems that were previously published in print journals are acceptable, with acknowledgment. Please e-mail 3–5 poems at a time to the Poetry Editor, F. J. Bergmann. with “Mobius sub” in the subject line. Response time should ideally be only a few days (unless things go to hell in a handbasket); please feel free to nag after a week has passed if you have not heard back. Check your spam filter first!
Art Guidelines
We use art only on the Table of Contents page for each issue. For the current issue, this is the index page. Please send the URL of a page or site where your work may be seen to the Art Editor, F. J. Bergmann. We use one image 200 pixels wide, preferably in portrait format, but will crop or resize larger images.
AI-generated work policy
We do not have any policy concerning AI work at this time, for the following reasons:
- There is currently no means of reliably identifying work produced by an AI (and this is a misnomer; technically it's machine learning—basically, applied statistics).
- We have yet to see any AI-generated fiction or poetry of publishable quality; publishable here, anyway.
- We consider that the individual doing the prompting (which is a skill) and the curating of the results is an artist, just as much as any photographer or flarf poet.
General Submission Information
Work should be pasted into your e-mail, or attached as a .doc or .rtf. Do not submit additional work until you have received a response to your prior submission. Sorry, we offer no payment at this time, but will be happy to put a link to your website in your contributor's bio. All rights retained by authors/artists.
Before you engage in intemperate dialogues concerning our judgement or policies, note that we reserve the right to print any received correspondence on this site or on our respective blogs, Vampire Cabbie and Disorient Express. See the Hate Mail page.