What We Publish
The Southeast Review publishes poetry, literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and art in each biannual issue as well as on SER Online, in addition to online book reviews and interviews. We pride ourselves on presenting emerging writers alongside well-established ones.
Our modest reading fee of $3 helps us meet the cost of this service, and all proceeds are directed to our contributor’s fund. Every submission is considered for both biannual and online publication.
To determine what we’re looking for, please read the works we’ve published. Click here to order a single biannual issue, here to become a subscriber, and here to read the latest from SER Online.
Please see our Contests page for information on our annual poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art contests.
We look forward to reading your work!
Overall Guidelines
We try to respond to submissions within 6 months, but it may take longer. If you haven’t heard from us after 6 months, you may query the appropriate section editor.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw your piece via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
Please wait until you receive a reply regarding a submission before you submit a new piece. Unfortunately we do not open submissions to edits on Submittable.
We do not publish work that has been previously published elsewhere.
We acquire First North American serial rights, and payment is in the form of an honorarium from our contributor's fund. Contributors accepted for print publication will also receive a complimentary copy of the issue in which their work will appear.
Current students and recent graduates of Florida State University, contest judges, and SER readers and masthead members are not eligible to submit. FSU graduates become eligible to submit once 5 years have passed since graduation
You don’t have to be young to read or write YA. It is a category of fiction that currently attracts readers from every demographic. The Southeast Review is interested in YA as well, so we will now be accepting Young Adult fiction submissions. These submissions will be capped at 100.
YA is about more than just having a teenage protagonist. The work needs to take on the perspective of a young adult, not a grown person looking back on their teen experiences. If you think your story fits this category, we can’t wait to read it.
Please submit one double-spaced short story of up to 4000 words.
We rarely publish short-shorts outside of our World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest. If you do plan to submit short-shorts, however, please send no more than five per submission. We don’t publish novellas and will only consider novel excerpts if they work as stand-alone stories.
P.S. For the category, we are open to any genre, so long as it fits under the YA umbrella.
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
We are offering free general submissions for writers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
You don’t have to be young to read or write YA. It is a category of fiction that currently attracts readers from every demographic. The Southeast Review is interested in YA as well, so we will now be accepting Young Adult fiction submissions. These submissions will be capped at 100.
YA is about more than just having a teenage protagonist. The work needs to take on the perspective of a young adult, not a grown person looking back on their teen experiences. If you think your story fits this category, we can’t wait to read it.
Please submit one double-spaced short story of up to 4000 words.
We rarely publish short-shorts outside of our World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest. If you do plan to submit short-shorts, however, please send no more than five per submission. We don’t publish novellas and will only consider novel excerpts if they work as stand-alone stories.
P.S. For the category, we are open to any genre, so long as it fits under the YA umbrella.
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
We are offering free general submissions for writers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Please note that these submissions do have a cap, in the event that we receive more free submissions than Submittable allows us to offer.
Please submit no more than 5 single-spaced poems at a time, with a maximum of 15 pages per total submission. Place all poems in one document.
Only withdraw your entire submission if none of your submitted poems remain available. To withdraw a single poem, please add a note to your submission with the title you would like to remove from consideration. (Please notify us via Submittable only, not email.)
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
We are offering free general submissions for writers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Please note that these submissions do have a cap, in the event that we receive more free submissions than Submittable allows us to offer.
Please submit one double-spaced creative nonfiction piece of up to 5000 words.
We’re open to a variety of forms, including memoir, travel writing, and personal essay. We don’t, however, publish academic writing.
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
We are offering free general submissions for writers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Please note that these submissions do have a cap, in the event that we receive more free submissions than Submittable allows us to offer.
Please submit one double-spaced short story of up to 7500 words.
We rarely publish short-shorts outside of our World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest. If you do plan to submit short-shorts, however, please send no more than five per submission. We don’t publish novellas and will only consider novel excerpts if they work as stand-alone stories.
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
General submissions to the Southeast Review are free year-round to persons who are currently or formerly incarcerated; contest fees are also waived.
If you are submitting on behalf of someone else, please provide your contact information in the fields below, as well as any additional information we might need to contact the person whose work you're submitting.
Specific guidelines for submissions in any genre can be found on our main page.
**If you are formerly incarcerated, please include a brief statement in your cover letter regarding how your experience being incarcerated has impacted you.
Note: Should a person who is currently incarcerated wish to submit directly, rather than through a liaison, we accept submissions by mail. Please provide them with the following mailing address:
Southeast Review
English Department. Williams Bldg.
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
We’re interested in interviews that balance an intimate portrayal of the writer with their work. Explore the personal, ask about the nonliterary, evoke a mood. Create context for the work under discussion, then give us a sense of how the writer identifies with a particular tradition or is trying to break from it. We encourage making connections with political and historical events so that your conversation opens to broader audiences.
Please send us a complete interview for consideration. We particularly welcome interviewers and writers from historically marginalized groups.
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!
Please submit no more than 5 single-spaced poems at a time, with a maximum of 15 pages per total submission. Place all poems in one document.
Only withdraw your entire submission if none of your submitted poems remain available. To withdraw a single poem, please send a message via Submittable with the title you would like to remove from consideration. (Please notify us via Submittable only, not email.)
While you're here, check out our upcoming virtual workshops and classes!