Scroll down for literary magazine submissions.
WORKSHOPS
Scroll down past our submission guidelines to view our current workshop offerings. Cleaver Magazine offers affordable online generative workshops in flash, fiction, creative nonfiction, visual narrative, poetry, and narrative collage. Our workshops are taught by Cleaver editors, university creative writing professors, and professional writers and editors. All classes are held online. Most classes are capped at 12 participants. For more information check out the workshop page on our main site.
QUARTERLY MAGAZINE SUBMISSIONS
Cleaver Magazine accepts submissions year-round. View our general guidelines below. We are an all-volunteer organization staffed by artists and writers who work together as promoters and stewards of literary and visual arts.
We receive over 3000 submissions a year with an acceptance rate of slightly 7.25%. Submissions are read by our editorial team in chronological order as we make our way through the queue. The wait time for an answer will vary from a few days to several months, but be assured that we read every submission. We try to pass on editorial comments to submitters whenever possible.
From 2013 through 2019 we offered free submissions to all writers. As of January 1, 2020, to help defray the steeply rising costs of the Submittable platform (which now costs us over $1000 per year) and our web hosting platform, we are instituting a $5 submission fee. (Submittable takes a portion of each submission fee, so we receive only $3.76 from every $5.) If the $5 fee presents a hardship, please do not hesitate to email us at editor@cleavermagazine.com and we will send you a no-fee submission link.
A voluntary $25.00 fee will guarantee an expedited answer within two weeks. Paying an expedited submission fee does not increase your chances of acceptance, but it does go a long way to help us sustain our quarterly magazine filled with thwackingly fine cutting-edge fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork.
If you have a submission still in the queue and have not heard back from us, assume it has been held over for consideration for another issue. For inquiries, thwack us an email: editor@cleavermagazine.com.
A few general notes:
- We are currently not accepting art submissions.
- For visual narrative submissions, contact editor Emily Steinberg (steinberg.emily@gmail.com)
- Please don’t email submissions of poetry, fiction, flash, or creative nonfiction unless you have been specifically requested to do so by an editor. Unsolicited emailed submissions are deleted unread. Submissions mailed to our US Post Office box are recycled, unopened.
- We have a separate category for solicited submissions. Please use this category only when requested by an editor.
- Poets, if you need to withdraw single poems from a batch submission, please follow these instructions:
- Log into your Submittable account and go to your Submissions tab.
- Click on the Activity tab.
- In the text box tell us which poem(s) you are withdrawing.
GENERAL LITERARY MAGAZINE SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES
Cleaver accepts simultaneous submissions, with immediate notification if work is accepted elsewhere. Previously published work is generally not accepted but we will occasionally consider work shared on personal blogs/websites or work previously published in a limited print-only edition.
- Include your name and full contact information with each submission.
- We'd like to get to know you, so include a brief bio.
- Prose submissions should be single-spaced. We'll still read double-spaced mss, but it's harder for us to read double-spaced mss. through the Submittable interface, so please be nice to our eyes!
- Please include the word count for your submission at the top of the document.
- Please wait to hear back from us before submitting a new unsolicited manuscript.
- We operate on a butterknife budget and are unable to pay authors for work at this time. In return for your literary labors, we offer respectful and thwackingly stylish curation.
- If you forget to single-space your submission or include the word count, no worries, we won't hold that against you. We're pretty nice.
- If you would like editorial feedback, check the box and we'll include comments if they are available.
Our response time is generally 2-4 months for fiction, flash, and essays and 2-12 months for poetry. Occasionally we will respond much faster. We have an all-volunteer staff and many submissions, so please be patient. But if you feel that your piece has been languishing in the cue too long, just email us. Sometimes a submission gets lost in the filters.
All rights revert to the author upon publication. If you republish your work in a print or other journal, please credit Cleaver for the first publication.
If you submit to Cleaver you will automatically be added to our list for a free email subscription. If you do not wish to receive a subscription, let us know in your author's note.
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Cleaver is pleased to offer limited full-tuition scholarships to our workshops for writers living in Philadelphia, thanks, in part, to the generosity of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the City of Philadelphia.
Scholarships are limited to one per workshop; one scholarship per writer per year.
Please complete this brief form explaining your interest in the selected workshop and why this workshop will make a difference for you at this stage of your writing journey.
Instructor: Jen Mathy
Dates: Oct 21, Oct 28, Nov 4, Nov 11
Cost: $300
Times: Saturdays 10 am-12 pm ET
Open to: This course invites writers of all genres.
Synchronous
In this workshop, we will:
- generate new writing through exercises and assignments
Title: The Shameless Self-Promotion Workgroup
Course Description:
In this four-week workshop, we'll learn by doing. Each Saturday morning, we'll carve 120 minutes out of our lives to build the marketing foundation for our writing businesses.
Together, we'll set up our social media platforms, create graphic assets, workshop press releases, edit our headshots, and talk about small steps we can take to market existing work and / or prepare ourselves for success. Each week, participants will be given 30-minute assignments in preparation for the next class.
We'll work together, share our experiences, and overcome the "eww factor" in promoting ourselves and our work.
Instructor: Jennifer Fawcett
Dates: Oct 22, 29, Nov 5, Nov 12
Times: Sundays, 2-4 PM ET
Cost: $300
Open to: Writers of fiction (novels, short stories), YA, thrillers, mystery, horror
Combination (Synchronous with Asynchronous elements)
In this workshop, we will (select all that apply):
- generate new writing through exercises and assignments
- critique writing already in progress
Title: What Happens Next? Writing Suspense in Fiction
Description:
Why do some stories make us lean forward? How do some books keep us turning the pages long after our better judgment has told us to go to bed? The answer is suspense, and it belongs in every kind of story.
Suspense is more than just whodunnit (or why-dunnit). It is the necessary ingredient to get a reader invested in your story. Tension is created when we are emotionally invested in the characters but don’t know what will happen to them. The stakes are high, the questions are unanswered, and the release awaits us if only we keep reading.
In this four-week workshop, we will explore tools to create a tightly woven narrative that pulls your reader into the world and holds them there.
Topics will include:
– Identifying the central question of your story
– Character knowledge, assumptions, contradictions
– Playing with time: expansion, contraction, and jumps
– Bringing evocative settings to life
Classes will include weekly readings, in-class writing prompts, peer workshops (asynchronous through Canvas), and longer writing exercises to be completed between classes.
Writers of any level and genre of fiction are welcome. The focus of the class is most appropriate for writers with a narrative project in progress.
Instructor: Ilana Masad
Dates: Oct 4, 11, 18, and 25
Cost: $300
Times: Wednesdays, 7-9pm ET
Open to: This course invites writers of all genres.
Synchronous
In this workshop, we will:
- generate new writing through exercises and assignments
- provide feedback on writing you produce in workshop
Title: How to Write Compelling Book Reviews
Description:
Everyone’s a critic—so the saying goes, and indeed, in our age of Yelp, Letterboxd, Goodreads, and Storygraph, reviews are everywhere. But there’s a difference between a product review and criticism. The former is based entirely on personal experience (as well as preconceptions, assumptions, biases, and conscious or unconscious desires), the latter is an art in and of itself as well as a form of journalism.
Readers rely on criticism to help them make choices about what books to buy, check out of the library, pre-order, or share with a friend. In this way, writing book reviews can be an act of literary citizenship, a way of contributing and taking part in our writerly and readerly communities. Additionally, writing book reviews can help us develop a reputation and a byline and allow us to develop a unique voice separate from our creative work.
A good book review takes into consideration far more than the critic’s personal thoughts and feelings—although those do, of course, matter too. Literary criticism takes into account broader cultural implications, utilizes (often invisible) research, and attempts to examine the book in question on its own terms as well as its place in an ongoing conversation.
This four-week course will explore what book reviews can do, the artistry that can enter into them, and the pleasure of thinking deeply and then writing about literature. We’ll read book reviews, of course, and examine the different forms they can take. There will be one assigned book (likely a novel) that we’ll all read in order to discuss approaches to reviewing it as well as the way our differing thoughts and opinions might broaden our own understanding of it. Additionally, writers will produce one review of a book of their choosing that the instructor will provide feedback on.
Depending on class interest, we’ll also explore some of the resources available to those interested in pursuing book criticism.
Instructor: Kathryn Kulpa
Dates: Oct 1 – Oct 29
Cost: $300
Open to writers of: Flash Fiction, Flash Nonfiction, Hybrid Forms, Memoir, Flash novella, Flash Collection.
NOTE: This workshop will focus on works made up of short ( ≤1000 words) stories/chapters that combine as a thematic collection OR a single longer work (approximately 6000-20,000 words).
Combination (Asynchronous, with Synchronous meetings to be scheduled to fit the convenience of the group.)
In this workshop, we will:
- generate new writing through exercises and assignments
- provide feedback on writing you produce in workshop
- critique writing already in progress
Course Description: This four-week workshop is designed for experienced flash and microfiction writers who are ready to put their work together as a flash collection or a flash novella (also known as a novella-in-flash or a flash novel). We will take a close look at these forms, how they overlap and how they differ, and share our own works in progress. Weekly writing prompts will provide deadlines and accountability, while offering flexibility so writers can work on ongoing projects.
Some of the questions we will explore are:
—How important is it for stories in a collection to be linked?
—What threads can writers use to connect stories in a collection? A unifying theme? Repeating words or images? Recurring forms? Overlapping characters?
—How can we recognize recurring motifs in our own work and organize a collection?
—When do groups of stories with recurring characters become a novella? Should a writer start out with a longer form in mind, or can a novella be assembled after the fact from existing flash pieces?
We will read and discuss several works together as a class, then students will pick a title of their choice to present to the class. We will focus on flash prose, but hybrid work (including mixtures of prose and poetry or work with visual elements) is also welcome.
Each week, a new writing prompt will be posted as a discussion thread. Under that discussion thread, you’ll post your story, chapter, or section. If you have specific aspects that you want people to comment on, you can indicate that when you post your work. You should also post feedback for other writers. We will be posting new, raw work, so please keep your comments encouraging and look for things the writer does well.
Can't Join Live? Replays Available!
POINT OF VIEW AS PLAY AND PRACTICE
Taught by Sheree L. Greer
Sunday, May 28
2-4 pm ET on Zoom
In this single-session workshop, writers will explore point of view as both a craft element and an opportunity for play and practice. Through interactive readings, discussion, and writing exercises, writers will examine point of view as a portal of exploration in their prose and their creative practice.
DELUSIONS OF GRAMMAR
Taught by Sara Levine
Sunday, June 25
2-4 pm ET on Zoom
“All I know about grammar is its infinite power,” Joan Didion wrote, and if that sends a shiver of curiosity up and down your spine, welcome to my workshop! This one-day class is a high-energy exploration of the rhetoric of grammar: how to think strategically about form. We’ll look at how writers make decisions when they confront a sentence: the patterns sentences typically follow and the different ways clauses hang together. By the class’s end, you’ll be able to diagnose what makes a sentence boring and tweak it until it has more suspense than a Netflix thriller.
YOU, INC.: BUILDING YOUR WRITING BRAND
Taught by Jen Mathy
Sunday, July 23
2-4 pm ET on Zoom
This masterclass will demystify marketing. We’ll talk about your small-business “must-haves,” use literary examples to illustrate the differences among social media platforms, and look at best practices across the literary community. We’ll do exercises to get you thinking about yourself as a brand and discuss ways to weave brand-building into your writing practice.
URGENCY AND THE PERSONAL ESSAY
Taught by Megan Stielstra
Sunday, August 20
2-4 pm ET on Zoom
This lightning-bolt session begins with the gut. What you need to tell; the memories, fascinations, and questions that live not in your head but your bones. Then: craft—how to tell our personal stories in ways that are equally urgent to an audience. Pulling from both literary and oral storytelling traditions, we’ll engage in activities (adapted for Zoom!) to get our experiences out of the body and onto the page, encouraging risk and discovery and examining literary craft in new ways. How does telling a story aloud heighten our understanding of its structure? How does the presence of an immediate audience influence the rewriting process? What does it mean to build an individual writing process that will sustain us without the support of a class?
URGENCY AND THE PERSONAL ESSAY
Taught by Megan Stielstra
$60 a la carte single recorded workshop
This lightning-bolt session begins with the gut. What you need to tell; the memories, fascinations, and questions that live not in your head but your bones. Then: craft—how to tell our personal stories in ways that are equally urgent to an audience. Pulling from both literary and oral storytelling traditions, we’ll engage in activities (adapted for Zoom!) to get our experiences out of the body and onto the page, encouraging risk and discovery and examining literary craft in new ways. How does telling a story aloud heighten our understanding of its structure? How does the presence of an immediate audience influence the rewriting process? What does it mean to build an individual writing process that will sustain us without the support of a class?
Writers and storytellers at all levels are welcome. The work we’ll do is useful both in generating new material and digging deeper into stories you’ve been wrestling with for years. Need to jumpstart an ongoing project? Need to finalize a manuscript for submission/publication? Need to get this story out of your body so you don't have to carry it anymore? Let’s make it happen.
Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, the Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Chicago Review of Books. Her work appears in the BET American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, Longreads, Guernica, LitHub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for National Public Radio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf Theatre, and regularly with the Paper Machete live news magazine at the Green Mill. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University and is an editor-at-large with Northwestern University Press.
YOU, INC.: BUILDING YOUR WRITING BRAND
Taught by Jen Mathy
$60 a la carte single workshop
You write. You revise. And with a little perseverance, you publish. Now it’s up to the journal to attract readers. Your piece will, naturally, reach the desk of a literary agent who is brought to tears by the quiet restraint of your unquestionable genius. She immediately lands you a book deal at a Big 5 publisher who dedicates bajillions (yes, bajillions) to market your work. There’s a book tour, a Times review, and a viral video of Oprah personally – and lovingly – applying stickers to your book jacket. Neat!
The reality is that journals, presses, and publishers often lack the resources to market your work. A successful writer needs to think of themselves as an entrepreneur, a business partner, a brand, and a literary citizen. It’s daunting for many writers, but promoting yourself and your work can be accomplished though small, mindful tasks. And, it may lead to freelance assignments, commissions, teaching gigs, agents, even that book deal.
This masterclass will demystify marketing. We’ll talk about your small-business “must-haves,” use literary examples to illustrate the differences among social media platforms, and look at best practices across the literary community. We’ll do exercises to get you thinking about yourself as a brand and discuss ways to weave brand-building into your writing practice.
Participants will be emailed brand-building checklists and handouts at the end of the class.
Jen Mathy is a marketing communications consultant in social media, PR, and advertising. She was VP of advertising and brand management for Morgan Stanley, brand manager for Discover Card, and in university relations for NorthwETern University. She managed social media for Bennington Writing Seminars, and served as a consultant for both the Hurston-Wright Foundation and the Maurice Sendak Foundation. She currently manages social media for Cleaver Magazine. Jen has an MFA in Writing from Bennington College. She has written stories for The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, among others, and wrote the poetry and prose for “An Expat Journey in Singapore,” a book of photography about the island nation.
POINT OF VIEW AS PLAY AND PRACTICE
Taught by Sheree L. Greer
$60 a la carte single workshop
In this single-session workshop, writers will explore point of view as both a craft element and an opportunity for play and practice. Through interactive readings, discussion, and writing exercises, writers will examine point of view as a portal of exploration in their prose and their creative practice.
——————
ShereeL. Greer is a writer living in Tampa, Florida. She is the author of two novels, Let the Lover Be and A Return to Arms, and a short story collection, Once and Future Lovers. Her work has been published in LezTalk Anthology, VerySmartBrothas, Autostraddle, The Windy City Times, and the Windy City Queer Anthology: Dispatches from the Third Coast. Sheree is a VONA/VOICES alum, Astraea grantee, as well as a Yaddo and Ragdale Fellow. Her essay, "Bars" published in Fourth Genre Magazine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and notably named in Best American Essays 2019.
DELUSIONS OF GRAMMAR
Taught by Sara Levine
$60 a la carte single workshop
“All I know about grammar is its infinite power,” Joan Didion wrote, and if that sends a shiver of curiosity up and down your spine, welcome to my workshop! This one-day class is a high-energy exploration of the rhetoric of grammar: how to think strategically about form. We’ll look at how writers make decisions when they confront a sentence: the patterns sentences typically follow and the different ways clauses hang together. By the class’s end, you’ll be able to diagnose what makes a sentence boring and tweak it until it has more suspense than a Netflix thriller.
What you’ll get from the class:
● One immersive real-time meeting with your instructor and cohort
● A new sensitivity to grammar and how it can serve you as a writer
● Detailed explanations of how to mess around with grammar on the ground (as opposed to
memorizing rules about split infinitives or dangling participles)
● Short and never tedious exercises to move the grammar lessons out of your head and into
your hand
● A Further Reading List, should you decide to fully embrace your grammatical power
Sara Levine is the author of the novel Treasure Island!!! and the short story collection Short Dark Oracles. She has a Ph.D. from Brown University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, and has taught at the University of Iowa as well as The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her nonfiction has been anthologized in The Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: 1970 to the Present; Essayists on the Essay: Montaigne to Our Time; and Understanding the Essay. You can find out more about her at sara-levine.com
SHORT STORY CLINIC
with Andrea Caswell
One-on-one personal feedback for your story.
Fiction writer and editor Andrea Caswell will read your short story (up to 5000 words) and offer constructive written feedback regarding what’s working, what needs attention, and how to improve in key craft areas. Feedback will be returned within 21 days; expedited turnaround also available. You may add an optional video conference with Andrea to discuss your work further and ask questions about the next steps for revision.
Submission Guidelines
-Story Clinic is open to all fiction writers
-5000 words maximum
-You may include specific questions for feedback in the cover letter section when you submit
-Category may close if editors’ capacity is reached; it will reopen the following month
Cost
-One short story 1K – 3000 words: $100
-One short story 3K – 5000 words: $150
-Optional 30-minute video or phone conference: add $50
-Expedited two-week turnaround: add $50
For more details see: https://www.cleavermagazine.com/workshops/
Creative Nonfiction Clinic
With Sydney Tammarine
Here is your opportunity for one-on-one editorial feedback on a work-in-progress.
Whether you have an essay near completion to submit to journals or programs, or have written a draft and don’t know what to do next, an experienced editor will offer the guidance and encouragement necessary to realize your best work.
Creative nonfiction writer and editor Sydney Tammarine will read your essay (up to 4000 words) and offer constructive written feedback regarding what’s working, what needs attention, and how to improve in key craft areas. Feedback will be returned within 21 days; expedited turnaround is also available. You may add an optional video conference with Sydney to discuss your work further and ask questions about next steps for revision.
Submission Guidelines
- Creative Nonfiction Clinic is open to all nonfiction writers
- 5500 words maximum
- Please double-space your manuscript and use Times New Roman or a similar font
- You may include specific questions for feedback in the cover letter section when you submit
- Category may close if editors’ capacity is reached; it will reopen the following month
Note: this is a paid service. If you wish to submit your work for consideration for publication, please use the Creative Nonfiction category.
Cost
$100 for up to 2500 words
$150 for up to 4000 words
$200 for up to 5500 words
$50 add-on for a 30-minute Zoom consultation
$50 add-on for an expedited 2-week turnaround
Please upload documents in any genre only if your work was personally requested by one of the Cleaver editors. In the cover letter field, let us know which editor solicited your work and include a brief bio statement.
Submit up to 5 poems in a single document. If you need to withdraw one or more poems in the batch, don't email our editor.
Instructions for single-poem withdraws:
1. Log into your Submittable account and go to your Submissions tab.
2. Click on the Activity tab.
3. In the text box tell us which poem(s) you are withdrawing.
Submit one story up to 4000 words. Manuscripts should be single-spaced. Literary fiction only.
Submit micro-fiction (up to 700 words). Manuscripts should be single-spaced.
Submit micro nonfiction or short essays (up to 700 words). Manuscripts should be single-spaced.
You may pay a voluntary submission fee to expedite our reading of your manuscript. Payment does not increase your chances for acceptance, but it does go a long way to help us sustain our quarterly magazine filled with thwackingly fine cutting-edge fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork.
$25 receive an expedited reading with a guaranteed response (accept or decline) within two weeks.
Submit stories up to 4000 words. Manuscripts should be single-spaced.
You may pay a voluntary submission fee to expedite our reading of your manuscript. Payment does not increase your chances for acceptance, but it does go a long way to help us sustain our quarterly magazine filled with thwackingly fine cutting-edge fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork.
$25 submissions will receive an expedited reading with a guaranteed response (accept or decline) within two weeks (generally faster and often in less than one week.)
Submit micro-fiction or short essays (up to 900 words). Manuscripts should be single-spaced.
You may pay a voluntary submission fee to expedite our reading of your manuscript. Payment does not increase your chances for acceptance, but it does go a long way to help us sustain our quarterly magazine filled with thwackingly fine cutting-edge fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork.
$25 submissions will receive an expedited reading with a guaranteed response (accept or decline) within two weeks (generally faster and often in less than one week.)
Submit creative nonfiction) up to 3000 words. Manuscripts should be single-spaced.
You may pay a voluntary submission fee to expedite our reading of your manuscript. Payment does not increase your chances for acceptance, but it does go a long way to help us sustain our quarterly magazine filled with thwackingly fine cutting-edge fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork.
Paid expedited submissions will receive an expedited reading with a guaranteed response (accept or decline) within two weeks (generally faster and often in less than one week.)
Submit up to 5 poems in a single document. If you need to withdraw one or more poems in the batch:
1. Log into your Submittable account and go to your Submissions tab.
2. Click on the Activity tab.
3. In the text box tell us which poem(s) you are withdrawing.
$10.00 submissions will receive a response within two weeks.
Do you love to read contemporary fiction? Poetry? Essays? Are you a literary tastemaker? Cleaver needs readers and editors whose sensibilities click with our own to help us thwack! through our growing submissions pile and to copyedit and proofread the pieces we accept.
Editorial interns read and vote on submissions, help us proofread the issue before it goes live, and have the opportunity to work with a senior Cleaver editor to write a book review for publication. Time commitment: 5-10 hours/week. We can work with your college or university to provide academic credit for a semester-long internship at Cleaver.
We consider editorial internship applications on a rolling basis. Fall internships run September–December, spring internships January–April, and summer internships May–August. If you have not yet received a response to your application, it is under consideration for the upcoming term.
If you are past the "intern" stage and would like to be considered for our editorial staff, use the editorial internship application, but let us know in your cover letter that you are applying to be part of our regular staff. We often ask potential regular staff to complete an internship with us first, just to make sure we are a good fit for one another.
Here's how to apply:
- Upload your resume and a creative writing sample in the main genre you'd like to work with. Let us know other relevant skills including your familiarity with web platforms, and other tools. (Don't worry, technical savvy is not a prerequisite, but if you have it, we're thrilled to know.)
- Write a cover letter telling us about yourself and why you'd like to be on the Cleaver team. Be sure to explain which genres you're comfortable evaluating and editing.