Submit to Our Contests
Each year, So to Speak holds annual contests in the genres that we publish: visual art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
So to Speak accepts submissions using our Submittable submissions manager, which is linked below. Each contest charges an $8 reading fee per entry.
Current and former students of the judges are disqualified from entering corresponding contests. In addition, judges will be reading finalists as selected by the So to Speak editorial staff.
We look forward to reading your entries! Feel free to reach out with questions and concerns. You can purchase last year’s contest issue on our Submittable page. You can find out more about our submission guidelines on our website and/or on our Submittable page.
CATEGORY: ART
So to Speak is open to review any form of visual artwork. Past issues have included photography, drawing, painting, digital media, and images of various installations and sculpture. We welcome submissions including performance, digital and new media, photography and all 2D and 3D visual art forms.
The winner will be awarded $500, 2 complimentary issues, and publication in the journal. Up to three finalists may also be featured in the journal and will be eligible for publication in our annual print anthology.
JUDGE: ERIN SILVER
READING PERIOD
October 1-December 15
CATEGORY: POETRY
We’re looking for 3-5 of your best poems; the winner will be awarded $500, 2 complimentary issues, and publication in the journal. Up to three finalists may also be featured in the journal and will be eligible for publication in our annual print anthology. Multiple submissions are welcome in the same or other genres, multiple entry fees will have to be paid.
JUDGE: VICTORIA CHANG
Victoria Chang’s fourth book of poems, Barbie Chang was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2017. She is the author of three previous poetry books, Circle, Salvinia Molesta, and The Boss. The Bosswon the PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award. She received a Pushcart Prize for a poem published in Barbie Chang. She also edited an anthology, Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. Her poems have been published in Best American Poetry, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Nation, New Republic, and many other places. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2017. She is a contributing editor of the literary journal, Copper Nickel and a poetry editor at Tupelo Quarterly. She lives in Los Angeles with her family and her weiner dogs, Mustard and Ketchup and teaches within Antioch University’s MFA Program. She also serves on the National Book Critics Circle Board.
READING PERIOD
October 1-December 15
CATEGORY: FICTION
Send your single best work of nonfiction; the winner will be awarded $500, 2 complimentary copies of the issue, and publication in the journal. Up to three finalists may also be featured in the journal and will be eligible for publication in our annual print anthology.
JUDGE: PAM HOUSTON
READING PERIOD
October 1-December 15
CATEGORY: NONFICTION
JUDGE: SANDY ALLEN
Sandy Allen is a writer, speaker, editor and teacher. Their essays and features stories have been published by BuzzFeed News, CNN Opinion, Bon Appétit’s Healthyish and Pop-Up Magazine. Sandy was previously BuzzFeed News’ deputy features editor. They also founded and ran the online-only literary quarterly Wag’s Revue. Sandy’s work focuses on constructs of normalcy, including psychiatric disability and gender. Sandy is nonbinary trans. Originally from Muir Beach, CA, they live in the Catskills. In January 2018, Scribner published Sandy’s critically acclaimed debut work of reported literary nonfiction, A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia.
READING PERIOD
October 1-December 15