Call for Submissions: Unwritten – CLOSED
“Drench yourself in words unspoken, live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins.” — Natasha Bedingfield
For our last quarterly issue of the year, we are looking for stories that confront the blank page, stories inspired by the spirit of the Unwritten. This issue asks us to consider the words we write, the paths we take, our choices in this still-unfolding narrative called life. It also asks what it means when the future feels unclear, when everything feels like it could be anything?
Send us fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, visual art, and hybrid works that explore that explore this theme of self-discovery, reinvention, transformation, the undefined.
Deadline: 31st October 2025
Submission guidelines:
- All submissions for the quarterly issue should be submitted to quarterly@iselemagazine.com. The email subject line should read Genre: Lastname (e.g. Poetry: Angelou).
- We DO NOT accept multiple submissions. Please submit to one genre only.
- For fiction and nonfiction, submit max. 5000 words of prose.
- For poetry, submit max. 3 poems in a single document.
- For photography and visual art, submit max. 5 images in JPEG or PNG format and include a brief note detailing the concept and relevance of your work. Only submit work that you still retain the rights to. We DO NOT accept AI-generated images or artwork.
- For prose (fiction and nonfiction) and poetry, we DO NOT publish previously published works (by this, we mean any piece that has appeared on the web or in print, including your personal blog). However, we will consider a translated version of the work if the original language wasn’t English. For photography and visual art, we may publish works that have been previously published, posted, or exhibited as long as the artist still retains the rights.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us as soon as your work is accepted elsewhere so that we can withdraw it from consideration.
Submission fees and payment of contributors:
- We DO NOT charge submission fees. All submissions are free of charge.
- Isele Magazine pays all its contributors a modest token.
Rights:
- Isele Magazine requests the first serial rights of your published piece. However, all rights will revert to you after publication. If your work is republished elsewhere, please indicate that it previously appeared in Isele Magazine.
The Isele Prizes
- All accepted submissions are automatically considered for The Isele Prizes.
Deadline: 31st October 2025
We will respond to every submission no later than two months from the submission deadline. If you have not heard from us within two months, please feel free to send a query to quarterly@iselemagazine.com.
General Submissions – CLOSED
We do not accept multiple submissions, but we do consider simultaneous submissions. Please let us know ASAP if the work submitted has been accepted for publication elsewhere.
Please do not submit previously published works (by this, we mean any piece that has appeared on the web or in print, including your personal blog). However, we will consider a translated version of the work if the original language wasn’t in English.
Please include a brief cover letter with the title of your piece and a third-person bio.
Submissions are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Due to the volume of the submissions we receive, we aim to respond within six months, though it can be longer. If you have not heard from us after one year of your submission, please feel free to send a query to editor@iselemagazine.com.
Isele Magazine requests first serial rights of your published piece. However, all rights will revert to you after publication. And if your work is republished elsewhere, please indicate that it was first published in Isele Magazine.
We pay our contributors a modest token.
Fiction & Nonfiction Submissions
You may submit up to 6,000 words of fiction and 3,500 words of nonfiction. Please make sure your manuscript is double-spaced, preferably in Times New Roman or Garamond size 12 font. We rarely publish novel excerpts but have been known to make exceptions.
Send fiction (as a Word document attachment) to fiction@iselemagazine.com.
Send nonfiction (as a Word document attachment) to nonfiction.iselemagazine@gmail.com.
Poetry
You may submit up to 4 pages of poetry or one long poem. Please submit as a single document.
Send poetry (as Word document attachment) to poetry.iselemagazine@gmail.com.
Book Reviews
Submit up to 1,500 words. Double-spaced, Times New Roman, size 12 font.
Send book reviews to submissions.iselemagazine@gmail.com.
All accepted submissions (excluding book reviews) are automatically considered for The Isele Prizes.
Call for Submissions: Rituals – CLOSED
“This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
What are the rituals that anchor us? The daily practices that keep us tethered to ourselves, to our ancestors, to each other?
For this quarterly issue of Isele Magazine, we are seeking submissions that explore rituals – both the quiet, personal habits that shape our days and the communal, cultural ceremonies that bind generations. Think of the incense in your grandmother’s kitchen, the whispered prayer before crossing a threshold, the choreography of grief at a burial, the routine of a morning coffee. How do rituals keep us alive? How do they change when we do? What happens when we break them or when they break us? How do they shape our identities, and how do our identities shape them?
We welcome fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, visual art, and hybrid works that explore this theme. Daily routines and meditative habits. Spiritual practices. Ancestral ceremonies and cultural traditions. Queer, diasporic, neurodivergent, or body-centred rituals. Invented or imagined rites (speculative or surreal).
Submission guidelines:
- All submissions for the quarterly issue should be submitted to quarterly@iselemagazine.com. The email subject line should read Genre: Lastname (e.g. Poetry: Angelou).
- We DO NOT accept multiple submissions. Please submit to one genre only.
- For fiction and nonfiction, submit max. 5000 words of prose.
- For poetry, submit max. 3 poems in a single document.
- For photography and visual art, submit max. 5 images in JPEG or PNG format and include a brief note detailing the concept and relevance of your work. Only submit work that you still retain the rights to. We DO NOT accept AI-generated images or artwork.
- For prose (fiction and nonfiction) and poetry, we DO NOT publish previously published works (by this, we mean any piece that has appeared on the web or in print, including your personal blog). However, we will consider a translated version of the work if the original language wasn’t English. For photography and visual art, we may publish works that have been previously published, posted, or exhibited as long as the artist still retains the rights.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us as soon as your work is accepted elsewhere so that we can withdraw it from consideration.
Submission fees and payment of contributors:
- We DO NOT charge submission fees. All submissions are free of charge.
- Isele Magazine pays all its contributors a modest token
Rights:
- Isele Magazine requests the first serial rights of your published piece. However, all rights will revert to you after publication. If your work is republished elsewhere, please indicate that it previously appeared in Isele Magazine.
The Isele Prizes
- All accepted submissions are automatically considered for The Isele Prizes.
Deadline: 30th June 2025
We will respond to every submission no later than two months from the submission deadline. If you have not heard from us within two months, please feel free to send a query to quarterly@iselemagazine.com.
Call for Submissions: Ephemeral – The Beauty in Impermanence – CLOSED
Not everything lasts forever, and that’s okay.
For this quarterly issue of Isele Magazine, we are seeking submissions that revolve around the ephemeral – those transient yet profoundly meaningful moments that shape our experiences. Conceptually, this quarterly issue is rooted in the idea that some of life’s most powerful and beautiful experiences are short—the soft glow of a sunset, the brief connection between strangers, the rush of emotions in an unforgettable encounter, the final note of a song, the last episode of your favourite series, the decay of a once-vibrant structure, the quiet moments that pass us by unnoticed. Experiences that are momentary, yet unforgettable.
Through this issue, we wish to explore impermanence—not as something tragic, but as something that underscores the delicate nature of existence. We want works that explore the fleeting beauty of life’s impermanence. We invite you to reflect on what it means to embrace the present while recognizing that it, too, is slipping away. It’s in the vanishing of these moments that we can find beauty, nostalgia, and a deeper connection to both the world and ourselves. Send us your fiction, nonfiction, poetry, photography, visual art, and hybrid works that explore this theme.
Submission guidelines:
- All submissions for the quarterly issue should be submitted to quarterly@iselemagazine.com. The email subject line should read Genre: Lastname (e.g. Poetry: Angelou).
- We DO NOT accept multiple submissions. Please submit to one genre only.
- For fiction and nonfiction, submit max. 5000 words of prose.
- For poetry, submit max. 3 poems in a single document.
- For photography and visual art, submit max. 5 images in JPEG or PNG format and include a brief note detailing the concept and relevance of your work. Only submit work that you still retain the rights to. We DO NOT accept AI-generated images or artwork.
- For prose (fiction and nonfiction) and poetry, we DO NOT publish previously published works (by this, we mean any piece that has appeared on the web or in print, including your personal blog). However, we will consider a translated version of the work if the original language wasn’t in English. For photography and visual art, we may publish works that have been previously published, posted, or exhibited as long as the artist still retains the rights.
- We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us as soon as your work is accepted elsewhere so that we can withdraw it from consideration.
Submission fees and payment of contributors:
- We DO NOT charge submission fees. All submissions are free of charge.
- Isele Magazine pays all its contributors a modest token.
Rights:
- Isele Magazine requests the first serial rights of your published piece. However, all rights will revert to you after publication. If your work is republished elsewhere, please indicate that it previously appeared in Isele Magazine.
The Isele Prizes:
- All accepted submissions are automatically considered for The Isele Prizes.
Deadline: 7th March 2025
We will respond to every submission no later than two months from the submission deadline. If you have not heard from us within two months, please feel free to send a query to quarterly@iselemagazine.com.
Isele Magazine 
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