Submit

Thanks for your interest in submitting to Dogwood.  You are invited to submit to Dogwood’s annual contest, which awards $1,000 each for the best essay, story, and poem submitted during the reading period.  Finalists are chosen by the editorial staff and accepted for publication; winners are then chosen from the finalist pool by a guest judge.  All steps of the consideration process are anonymous.  If you are not interested in entering the contest but would like your work considered by Dogwood, please see the “non-contest submissions” below.

Simultaneous Submissions

Simultaneous submissions are fine; if a work is taken by a journal, just let us know. If you want to withdrawn a piece, please do so in Submittable. We are an annual teaching journal with labor provided by undergraduates, so we are slower than journals with full-time staff. We judge work in two stages, first with acceptances and then with prize money for the top in each genre. If you are entering only because you hope to win the prize, we understand–but this contest may not be for you. We’ve had instances recently of work we accepted being pulled after acceptance not because it was accepted by another journal but because the author hopes to publish somewhere else. We would like to respectfully ask you to submit to Dogwood ONLY if you actually want to be published in the journal and if you would be happy with an acceptance.

Timeframe

The annual reading period for Dogwood is  July 1-September 5. During this period, we accept contest submissions through our online submission manager run by Submittable and non-contest submissions (for free) by mail. We try to get back to you within 4 months of our contest deadline of Sept. 5, which is when we begin reading. If you have waited 4 months after Sept. 5 and have not heard from us, feel free to give us a nudge via email and we will be happy to give you an update. You should receive an automatically generated email to acknowledge that your submission has been loaded into the system. You can then sign into Submittable at any point to see the status of your submission. It might not say “in process” for a few weeks because we have not yet assigned it to an editor. A recent change to Submittable causes a piece to be classified as “New” or “Unread” even if several staff members have looked at it, so our advice is to email us if you have any questions. If you are not comfortable with this timeframe, another journal might be better for your work.

Please note: Dogwood is a teaching journal, which means that graduate and undergraduate students are reading alongside the editor, who reads every submission and discusses each with students before rendering her decision. This means that our consideration process takes a little longer. All contest entrants will be notified of our decision by January 15, at which time the editor notifies finalists of their status, offers publication to them, and forwards a finalist pile to the final judge, who chooses a single winner.

Anonymous

all of our submissions are considered anonymously; if your name remains on the manuscript, you’ll get a note from us saying we can’t consider your work until it is rendered anonymous (see contest guidelines for assistance with that). Current and former employees and students of Fairfield University are ineligible for publication. In addition, please don’t submit if you happen to be a current or former student of the editor.

To Submit

Use the button below to enter your work through Submittable. We understand that the database may not be accessible for all screen readers, so if the site is difficult for you to use, we accept direct submissions via email. Please follow the guidelines listed below and email your submission to dogwoodliterary@gmail.com. Please mention the issue of accessibility in your cover letter. Writers who are incarcerated may enter the contest by mail or by email to dogwoodliterary@gmail.com, and submission fees are waived.

Non-Contest Submissions

Writers who seek publication but do not want to be considered for the contest may submit on-contest submissions for free by sending them directly to the Editor at the following address: Sonya Huber, Editor, Dogwood, Department of English, Fairfield University, 1073 N. Benson Road, Fairfield CT 06824. Our non-contest submissions are notified only of acceptance. If you have not heard from us by early in the year, we have declined your non-contest submission.

When you click on the link, you will be taken to an online database run by Submittable where you can upload your submission along with a very short cover letter.

Contest Submission Guidelines

Fiction and Nonfiction Submission Guidelines

• Submit fiction or nonfiction up to 22 pages using this online submission manager.
• Please title your submission with the title of your piece.
• Please double space and use 12-point font.
• Include a brief bio with contact information in the cover letter field on the submission manager, but no name should appear on the mss.
• Simultaneous submissions allowed if Dogwood is notified of acceptance elsewhere.
• Previously published work is not eligible.

Poetry Submission Guidelines

• Submit one, two, or three poems (max ten pages)
• Please include all poems in one document.
• Please single space and use 12-point font.
• In the submission manager, please include the titles of all poems in your submission title (rather than “Three Poems”).
• Include a brief bio with contact information in the cover letter field on the submission manager, but no name should appear on the mss.
• Simultaneous submissions allowed if Dogwood is notified of acceptance elsewhere.
• Previously published work is not eligible.

Deadline: September 5

Work not meeting the above guidelines will not be considered for publication. All contest entries meeting these requirements will be considered for publication in the next issue of Dogwood along with selected non-contest submissions. For more information, please email shuber (at) fairfield.edu.