therumpus.submittable.comThe Rumpus Submission Manager

Skip to Main Content Home View Your Submissions The Rumpus At The Rumpus, we're focused on publishing excellent writing. Good writing and good ideas are not always the same thing. A topic for an essay might sound horrendous but if a writer is in love with the idea enough she'll often render something beautiful. Beginning May 2016, we began to pay feature writers and book reviewers. Each month, we set aside $300. All eligible contributors are able to opt in for payment at the end of the month, and the money is divided between those writers who opt in. We know that this amount is not enough, and we are working toward being able to pay a standard industry rate to all feature contributors and book reviewers. We are often overwhelmed by the breadth and quality of our submissions. To allow our volunteer editorial staff better handle the workload and respond to your work in a more timely fashion, we've instituted reading periods for certain sections of The Rumpus. Our regular reading periods for Essays are as follows: September 1 through October 31, January 1 through February 28, and June 1 through July 31. Timely essays can be sent directly to our managing editor Marissa Korbel at mkorbel@therumpus.net ; all other essays should be sent through Submittable during our open reading periods. Our Rumpus Original Fiction reading periods are January 1 through January 31 and July 1 through July 31. Our Rumpus Original Poetry reading periods are January 15 through January 31 and July 15 through July 31. Our reading periods for the ENOUGH series are May 1 through May 31 and November 1 through November 30. Please do not submit the same piece to multiple categories at the same time. All work must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs and social media. Interview pitches and finished interview submissions are accepted year-round and should be sent directly to our Interviews team (interviews@therumpus.net). We are no longer using Submittable for interviews. Response time can vary from a few days to a few months. Please allow 3 months before sending status queries for essays, book reviews, and ENOUGH. Please allow 8 months before sending status queries for fiction, poetry, and our Funny Women column. Your patience is appreciated. Please note: Submittable only displays categories that are open for submission. If you do not see a category, please reference the above reading periods for information on when you can submit. Essays Ends on More SUBMIT to Essays Our regular reading periods for Essays are as follows: August 1 through October 31, January 1 through February 28, and June 1 through July 31. Timely essays can be sent directly to our Editor-in-Chief at marisa@therumpus.net ; all other essays should be sent through Submittable during our open reading periods. [Note: reading periods were updated June 2019. Our next open reading period begins August 1. The first June-July reading period will be in 2020.] We welcome essay submissions between 1500-4000 words in length. In addition to personal narrative-driven essays we are interested in non-traditional forms of nonfiction. Essays should explore issues and ideas with depth and breadth, illuminating a larger cultural context or human struggle. Regardless of topic, we are looking for well-crafted sentences, a clear voice, vivid scenes, dramatic arc, reflection, thematic build, and attention to the musicality of prose. Because the volume of submissions is so high and it takes time to read work carefully, it is generally not advisable to send time-sensitive work. Essays that deal with current events in ways that do not rely on timeliness are very welcome. Essays must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs and social media. Please submit only one essay for consideration at a time; we ask that you wait until a decision has been made on that essay to submit again. A cover letter is also welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself, why you chose The Rumpus, where your work has appeared before, or anything else you think might be important for us to know. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but do withdraw your submission if your essay is picked up elsewhere. Thank you for taking the time to proofread your submission. Double-spaced text is appreciated. If you have not heard a decision from us after three months, feel free to check in. Book Reviews More SUBMIT to Book Reviews If you are interested in submitting a poetry review, please do so in our Poetry Reviews Submittable category. Thank you! We're interested in thoughtful, engaging book reviews between 1200-2500 words. Please submit a finished draft of your review rather than a review pitch. Reviews should be single-spaced and paginated. Please provide the following information in your cover letter and at the top of your review: Title of book, author's name, name of press, publication date, and your name and email address. In your cover letter, please also include your contact information and a brief bio that we would use should your review be accepted. We prefer not to publish negative reviews, but it’s fine to discuss a specific weakness, lack, or question you have related to the book. Please disclose any relationship you have to the author of the book you’re reviewing if one exists; we do not accept reviews where a conflict of interest exists. All work must be previously unpublished—this includes personal blogs, websites, and social media. Publishers seeking to submit finished books for review consideration should not use this Submittable account; instead, please send a description of the book to our Books Editor at chelsea@therumpus.net. For poetry collections, please reach out to poetry@therumpus.net. Poetry Book Reviews More SUBMIT to Poetry Book Reviews The Rumpus has two reading periods for unsolicited original poetry: January 1–January 31 and July 1–July 31. Unsolicited poetry can be submitted during those reading periods to our Rumpus Original Poetry category. Please do not submit unsolicited poetry here. We are interested in entries for our "Last Poem I Loved" and "Last Book of Poems I Loved" series, which should be 1500–4000 words. Review guidelines are below. Please submit only "Last Poem I Loved," "Last Book of Poems I Loved," and poetry book reviews to this category. Poetry Book Review guidelines: We look for reviews of collections from a diverse group of poets working within a variety of aesthetics. Your review should be accessible to a general audience. We're more interested in the reader's experience of the poems, subject matter, arc, and the poet's use of craft than we are in scholarly criticism or theory. We love reviews that address how the collection interacts with poetic tradition, the current landscape of poetry, and that speaks to what the collection brings to our shared discourse as readers, writers, and citizens. Book reviews should be between 1200–2500 words. Please provide the following information at the top of your review: Title of book, author's name, name of press, publication date, and your name and email address. In your cover letter, please include your contact information and a brief bio that we would use should your review be accepted. Your review should be single-spaced and paginated. Poem excerpts of more than three lines should be formatted exactly as they appear on the page, and set off in the text of the review. Please include at least 1–2 excerpts of more than three lines. Shorter excerpts should be quoted within the text of the review using quotation marks and virgules ( / ), with one space ahead and behind the virgule to indicate line breaks. There is no need to cite page numbers within the review, but please check excerpts and quotes carefully to ensure they are free of errors and formatted correctly. We prefer not to publish negative reviews, but it’s fine to discuss a specific weakness, lack, or question you have related to the collection. Please disclose any relationship you have to the author of...