Our current theme is Books & Literature:

“One of the great gifts of mankind has been the creation of the written word. Books have helped shape history and have kept that history from fading into the past. For many of us, books are portals of escape; they open minds to new ideas and show us how we are never truly alone in what we think and feel.

We want to hear about the books that have changed you, the characters that have helped or inspired you, and the role that books have played in your life. Tell us about ancient manuscripts, lost libraries, and cozy bookshops on the coast. Send us reviews of your favorite books, odes to authors, or the first chapter of that novel you never thought would see the light of day. We want to see it all.”

We welcome submissions of poetry, prose, essays, art, photography, reviews, short films, music, and other forms of creative and academic expression. Our aim is to create a safe space for all forms of creativity and academia, and to foster adoration for the humanities.

Please note that we do not accept AI generated work of any type.

Poetry

We accept all forms of poetry. There is no line limit, but we ask that you do respect our piece limits per medium.

Creative Writing

We accept both creative fiction and creative nonfiction. We have no strict guidelines on this, so any creative prose you have should be submitted under this category.

Art & Photography

Any visual or audial media including – but not limited to – photography, drawing & painting, videography, and music. We do not accept AI generated work.

Essays

We welcome both narrative and academic essays. We have no specific citation style requirement for academic essays, but please provide citations if they are a part of your original essay.

An important distinction:

If your piece is a prose memoir, this would be considered creative nonfiction and should be submitted under our Creative Writing category. (An example of this would be the work of David Sedaris)

If your piece is a memoir but you are attempting to convince the reader of a specific point using the memoir as context, this would be considered a narrative essay and should be submitted under our Essay category. (An example of the narrative essay form would be the works of Joan Didion or Mary Oliver)

In short, essays of any type (academic or narrative) should have a thesis of some sort, whether it’s formal or informal.

Columns

If you’d like to explore a certain topic in a more informal way or share journalistic work, this is the category for you. Please note that we do not accept blog post style work (i.e no lifestyle topics or listicles).

It’s official! The Hyacinth Review is listed on both Duotrope and the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses as a publisher.

We’re also on Chill Subs, where you can keep track of your submissions & much more!

Our magazine focuses on beauty, joy, aesthetics, and a love of learning. We look for pieces that fit this overall vision.

Check out our interview with Six Questions For… to learn more about how we select pieces.

Yes! We accept translations as submissions. We believe that translation is an artform in and of itself.

If we accept a translated work, you will be listed as the author of the post, but we will add information regarding the original work before the translated content.

Yes! If you submit a piece that is part of a larger work, we do ask that you provide information on the larger piece so that we can provide this information before the excerpt.

We are a solely online publication with multiple open periods throughout the year, which will be announced here and on our social media accounts.

There is no need to contact us regarding previously published work or simultaneous submissions until we have accepted your piece.

We accept previously published work, but maintain that it is the responsibility of the creator to ensure that this does not conflict with any agreements made with another publication. We are happy to credit the original publication in which it appeared, so please include this information when submitting if it applies.

We accept simultaneous submissions. If your piece is accepted by another publication first we will still consider it as long as it does not conflict with the first publication’s policy. Once we have accepted your piece, please let us know if it needs to be withdrawn from our consideration.

Yes! Your work is yours. We humbly request that if you do publish a piece elsewhere after it has initially been published in The Hyacinth Review that the subsequent publications credit us as the original publication. However, your work is still yours to do what you wish with.

To submit your work please fill out the contact form at the bottom of the page during one of our open calls. If the contact form is not there, it means our submissions are currently closed.

IMPORTANT: Please carefully read our How should I format my submission? section below.

Alternatively, you may send it to: submissions[at]hyacinthreview.org. If you are submitting via email, the subject line should include the word “Submission” and the genre of work you are submitting, for example: “Submission-Poetry”. Please ensure that your submission follows the formatting and file name guidelines outlined in the subsequent sections.

IMPORTANT: In the body of the email please include the following:

• the number of pieces you are submitting
• the titles of your pieces

Please list the titles of your pieces in the following format:
Piece 1
Piece 2
Piece 3 (etc)

• We do not require a bio or introduction until your piece has been accepted.

We kindly ask that you do not send PDFs unless absolutely necessary. We utilize Google Docs for reviewing all pieces, and oftentimes the formatting is lost when we open a PDF.

We accept submissions in DOC/DOCX, PNG, ZIP, MP3, and MP4 formats.

If you have a unique file type that you’re unsure about, feel free to contact us.

You can also submit by sharing the link of a Google Doc or by sharing a Dropbox link with us in the submission email. We want to make the submission process as accessible as possible.

Note: The total file size limit on our contact form & email is 25 GB. If your submission total is larger than this please provide a Google Drive or Dropbox link.

IMPORTANT:  Failure to follow the formatting guidelines below may result in your submission being disqualified.

File Names:

This file should include your last name, the title of the first piece in the file, and the submission category, for example: Surname_Poem1_Poetry or Surname_Title_CreativeWriting

Please ensure that your surname is included in the beginning of the file name, as this allows us to quickly locate pieces.

Formatting Your Document:

The title of each piece must be clearly discernible from the piece itself. Each piece must begin on a new page. A simple, readable font (like Times New Roman) in 12 pt font is ideal.

For written submissions:

Please include all poetry pieces that you are submitting in one genre within one file. If you are submitting multiple poems, they should all be on one document with the titles clearly differentiated from the body text.

If you are submitting multiple creative writing pieces or essays, it is acceptable to submit individual documents due to the length of the work.

Photos, art pieces, music, and short film submissions:

Non-written media may of course be submitted as multiple files or links, but should also be named with the proper file name format.

Please do not submit artwork on a PDF or DOC file. This seriously decreases the quality of the image. Images should be submitted in PNG format.

If you would like to submit more files than the contact form below allows, please compress them as a ZIP file or provide a link to a Google Drive or Dropbox folder containing all of the files.

IMPORTANT: Submitting more pieces per medium than outlined below may result in your submission being disqualified. You are welcome to submit pieces for more than one medium, but please respect the limits for each medium as outlined below.

You may submit as follows:

• Poetry: 1-2 poems (no length requirement or limit)
• Prose: 1 piece (under 5,000 words)
• Essays: 1-2 pieces (under 5,000 words each)
• Columns: 1-2 pieces (under 2,000 words each)
• Reviews (of books, films, and art): 1-2 (under 2,000 words each)
• Art & Photography: 1-10 pieces
• Short Film (or other visual variant): 1-3 Pieces
• Music: 1-12 Pieces

If your piece doesn’t seem like it quite fits into any of these categories, you can always reach out and ask us for any sort of clarification, or send it to the genre you feel is closest.

For art, photography, & music: If your piece is part of a cohesive collection larger than the stated limit we may make an exception to this limit, please contact us.

You may submit to more than one genre in a submission period, but please treat these as separate submissions. This means submitting them in separate emails, using the appropriate subject line.

If we decline the publication of your work and the submission period is still open, please feel free to send us another submission (just not of the same pieces we passed on, please).

We want to remind submitters that we are a safe space for POC, LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people, and other marginalized groups.

We have a zero-tolerance policy for the following: racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, antisemitism, and any/every other form of bigotry. Work that idolizes or excuses these behaviors will not be considered.

If your work includes a slur or touches on these topics in a way that is meant to undermine or expose them (and you are a member of the marginalized group in question), please make a note in your submission email so that we can read the piece with this in mind.

We have a zero tolerance policy for AI generated submissions of any medium. This includes (but is not limited to), poetry, creative writing, essays, columns, and all mediums of art & photography. Any individuals found to be submitting AI generated work to us during our open call will be blacklisted from our submissions.

While we cannot offer payment to our contributors at this time, we hope that it may be a possibility in the future. This publication is currently a labor of love between two friends and is completely volunteer-run.

If you would like to make a donation to help us reach our goal of one day offering compensation to our contributors, you may do so via our Digital Donations page or via Ko-Fi here:

We aim to respond to submissions within 6-8 weeks after the open call period has ended.

Please add submissions[at]hyacinthreview.org to your contacts to ensure that you receive our response.

You might also hear back from terri[at]hyacinthreview.org or ariel[at]hyacinthreview.org, so be sure to check your Spam folder in case our response got mistakenly filed!

If it has been more than 2 months since the open call period has ended and you have not heard from us, please feel free to (kindly) reach out and query via our Contact page.

We are not currently officially open for providing feedback on individual pieces at this time, as we are a team of two and don’t have the time to give in-depth and meaningful feedback to every piece we receive.

We are just two people who are passionate about art and literature and we hold our own preferences and tastes when we review work. If we reject your pieces it does not inherently mean that your work is not good. It may just mean that it doesn’t fit in with our vision or among the majority of other pieces that we are reviewing at that time.

For Creative Writing and Essay submissions, the editors of The Hyacinth Review reserve the right to make minor edits where deemed necessary. This includes, but is not limited to:

• spelling corrections
• tense corrections
• punctuation corrections

If stronger editing is necessary, we may contact the author to consult them on the process.

We will always consult the author regarding Poetry edits, as even the most minor corrections can change the meaning of a piece.

Our roles as editors mean that we will do our best to help your piece shine.