Submissions

Have you ever eaten cold waffle fries in your underwear at like, 2am? No? Well, you should.

Eating leftovers you’ve convinced yourself you’ll heat up later and eat but then just eat them by the light of the fridge – though it’s unclear why you’re in your underwear – it’s a wonderfully strange experience and that’s kind of what we’re aiming for. A wonderfully strange experience but in words and art.

Got a piece that doesn’t quite fit elsewhere? We want to read it. Experimenting with format or style? Love it; send it our way. We want your abandoned words, your collection of phrases tucked away in your Notes app, that strangely-written but oddly elegant poem that doesn’t play well with others. We’re looking for hybrids, lyrics, prose, poetry; whatever you’ve got, we’ll read (within reason).

GENERAL SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED

We are currently only accepting submissions for our special edition issue: “Rhode Island (a state)”

The link to submit to “Rhode Island (a state)” can be found below as well as on the site menu. Please read submission guidelines for this special edition carefully.

Future issues will be announced here and on social media. Submission guidelines for all issues can be found below, in case you’re an overachiever who would like to prepare for the next one 🙂

Rhode Island Special Issue!

What We're Looking For

Poetry

We love all types of poetry except forced rhyming and meter. Send up to three poems. If all on the same document, please make it clear when a new poem begins. Please limit length to 1,500 words.

Creative Non-Fiction

We’re looking for almost every type of CNF except academic pieces or critiques. We love lyric essays, memoir, personal essays, etc. Please limit length to 1,500 words.

Fiction

We’re interested in micro, flash fiction and short stories. Being a small, print edition magazine means we can not publish your book. Please limit length to 1,500 words.

Visual Art

We love photography most of all – especially photography that includes people (consenting or in a public place). We also love digital art, painting, calligraphy, mixed media, and graphic design. Absolutely no AI for visual art pieces. No exceptions.

If you’re not sure which genre your work falls into, submit it as what feels right to you. Pieces that blur the lines between genres are pretty cool and we’re not hung up on labels anyway.

Translations

Translations are fine. Interweaving English and another language is also fine.

Formatting

Our submission manager, Duosoma, will guide you through this, but we accept doc, docx, pdf, jpg, tif and png files.

We’re not picky about font but for the love of God do not use Comic Sans (even if graphic design is your passion). Reasonable font size please and preferably 1.5 or double spaced.

Oh, by the way

We’re looking for stand alone pieces. Please only submit one piece per submission period and do not submit another piece until you’ve heard back about the first one.

Third person bio. 50 words max. We find the most intimidating part of submitting to be cover letters so we’re not asking for a whole lot. A simple “oh hey!” Or even “whaddup” will suffice. Maybe just tell us a fun fact about you (like what your favorite color or shape or dinosaur is!). Just acknowledge that we exist because our therapists said it’s good for us.

Deets

Alright, folks, here are the details that we really really really need you to read.

Artificial Intelligence

If you include AI as part of your piece and there’s a genuine purpose that it serves, please disclose this with your submission. Other than genuine, necessary, brief use….absolutely no AI.

Absolutely no hate

We do not tolerate bigotry of any sort: racism, homophobia, sexism, antisemitism, transphobia, ableism, etc. If you’re wondering if your piece may fall on this list, please do not submit. We do not tolerate hate speech or discrimination. This is not negotiable. Work that violates this will be disregarded and submitters may be banned.

NSFW

We’re really not into reading super NSFW pieces. Swearing is fine, but we’re not interested in smut or gratuitous violence, especially sexual violence.

Content Warnings

We’re people and because we’re people, we’ve lived through some shit. While CW/TW are not required, they are greatly appreciated when it comes to sensitive topics. If you’re unsure if your piece needs one, add it.

Unpublished pieces only, please

We’re reasonable, though, so if it’s appeared on social media or a blog, we’ll consider it but please disclose this when you submit.

Simultaneous submissions

YES. Definitely. We’re writers, we get it. Send your work out into the universe but please notify us immediately if it’s accepted elsewhere.

Editing

Look, we’re not looking for perfection but please send us work that you want out in the world. While a couple of spelling or grammatical mistakes are understandable, work that will require significant editing will not be published.

Compensation

Published authors and artists will receive a print edition of the issue they are published in. We’re hoping to be able to compensate contributors but unfortunately are unable to right now. 🙁

Resubmitting

If your piece is not accepted, please wait one month before submitting again. Unless specifically requested, do not submit a piece that has already been turned down but edited. We understand that rejections suck and we try to include feedback or a personal response rather than those form rejections that can sometimes extra suck (and trigger imposter syndrome and rejection sensitivity dysphoria? No? Just us? Weird, but ok)

If your work is accepted, please sit one print issue out before you submit again.

Rights

We publish under First North American Serial Rights. We ask that you credit Waffle Fried as the first publisher when submitting or posting elsewhere.

publisher@wafflefried.com

Waffle Fried is supported by its audience.