We welcome works from both emerging and established authors and particularly encourage under- or unrepresented artists and writers to submit.
The MockingOwl Roost is currently CLOSED to submissions. We will reopen during the following Submission Periods in 2025:
Before submitting anything, please read our desired themes and submission guidelines below. Follow the submission guidelines carefully. Submissions that don’t follow the guidelines increase their likelihood of rejection by quite a bit.
- April 4 to May 19, 2025 for the Magazine Themes and Blog Content.
- Intended for publication in the later portion of 2025 and the 2026 calendar year.
- We cannot accept any poetry for the blog in 2025. This is due to a large backlog of poetry that we want to prioritize before accepting more.
- Multiple Submissions accepted:
- Written pieces, limited to
- 10 total pieces and 20,000 total words which may include any combination of:
- Fiction (10,000 words max each), or
- Nonfiction (5,000 words max each).
- 20 poetry for magazine themes only.
- Submit any pieces under 300 words together as a single document.
- 10 total pieces and 20,000 total words which may include any combination of:
- Visual/Performance pieces, limited to:
- 20 total images.
- 4 videos totaling 1gb max. (our form will not accept larger)
- 4 audio recordings totaling 1 gb max.
- Written pieces, limited to
- June 27 to July 14, 2025 for Holiday Only Blog Content for 2025.
- This can be any recognized holiday or special event within the calendar year.
- Multiple Submissions accepted:
- Written pieces, limited to:
- 10 total pieces and 15,000 total words, fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, which may include any combination of:
- Holiday themed poetry (50 word minimum each),
- Holiday themed fiction (8,000 words max each),
- Holiday themed nonfiction (5,000 words max each).
- Submit any pieces under 300 words together as a single document.
- 10 total pieces and 15,000 total words, fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, which may include any combination of:
- Visual/Performance Pieces, limited to:
- 10 images only if they are intended to be included with your written pieces. We do not publish visual art by itself on the Blog.
- 4 videos totaling 1gb max. (our form will not accept larger)
- 4 audio recordings totaling 1 gb max.
- All other content submitted during this time will automatically be rejected.
- Written pieces, limited to:
- Annual Writing Contest TBD later in the year.
- The prompt will be an image we will provide after the July submissions have closed.
- Flash Fiction or Narrative Poetry (500 word max).
We will only accept submissions during these periods and via our forms. We will automatically reject pieces submitted outside these periods and via email. When we are open, you will find the appropriate links to our forms available below.
Editorial Calendar
Below are our anticipated Magazine issues for 2025 and 2026, followed by our current top blog series. Word count requirements for all pieces may be found in the “What We Publish” section further down. Note that certain issues are now CLOSED for further submissions. Others will open in April.
We maintain several special blog series that we invite anyone to contribute if they feel their piece meets the listed criteria and doesn’t too closely resemble pieces already published within the series.
Upcoming Magazine Issues
- CLOSED – Dragon Scales and Other Tails – (publishing February 15, 2025)
- CLOSED – Elementary, My Dear Marple – (publishing March 15, 2025)
- CLOSED – All the World’s a Stage – (publishing May 15, 2025)
- CLOSED – Breath of Nature – (publishing July 15, 2025)
- REOPENING IN APRIL – Among the Distant Stars – Star-themed Science Fiction (publishing August 15, 2025)
- REOPENING IN APRIL – Yonder Goes the Tumbleweed – Old West Historical Fiction (publishing October 15, 2025)
- OPENING IN APRIL – Side Roads and Detours – Considering our Directionals (publishing February 15, 2026)
- OPENING IN APRIL – Wide, Wild World – Embarking on Adventure & Exploration of Nature (publishing April 15, 2026)
- OPENING IN APRIL – Alive and Free – Wholesome Positivity (publishing June 15, 2026)
- OPENING IN APRIL – Still Life – Appreciation of the Visual Arts (publishing August 15, 2026)
- OPENING IN APRIL – Sprigs of Peace – Poetry Special Focusing on Hope and Peace (publishing December 15, 2026)
- OPENING TBD – Prized Issue 2025 – Writing Contest 2025 (publishing December 15, 2025)
- OPENING TBD – Zombies Need Love, Too! – Writing Contest 2026 (publishing October 15, 2026)
Blog Series
- Pop Culture – An intentional series to investigate the cultures we interact with, with the aim of drawing out the positives of humanity and creativity. Pieces may include reviews, interviews, or deeper analyses of themes within other creative work.
- Travel – Have you been somewhere or attended a special recurrent event that you feel others should also take the time to explore? Tell us about it in a way that enables us all to see your delight in the experience.
- Literary Travel – A little different from just a simple voyage! Tell us about trips you’ve made or plan to make because of what you learned about them from a book.
- Example pieces: The Isle of Arran, Traveling Back in Time With Outlander
- Things I Wish I Had Said – Is there some moment that lives in your memory, haunting you for what was left unsaid? This is the space to rework that moment. Your piece can wrestle with harder topics, but must have a positive message ultimately.
- Example pieces: Closing Chapter on Friendship, Words Unspoken
- Positivity Corner – Share with us a small aspect of life — a thing, habit, place, etc — that makes living better for you.
- Example pieces: My Matcha Ritual, Waterfall Bathing in Prony Bay, New Caledonia
- My Favorite Things (Includes photos/artwork) – Share with us about a favorite thing you have or do. In most cases these essays should include your own artwork or photography along with your writing. Images must be reasonably well-crafted and high-resolution to be considered, but they don’t have to be professional.
- Example pieces: Storm Season, Black Cats
- Wellness & Fitness for Creatives – If you have experiences in fitness or wellness as it relates to your ability to create, we’d love to hear them. These stories should have a general applicability with the aim of enabling other creatives to follow in your footsteps.
- Example pieces: Yoga Poses for Creatives, Destination Inspiration
General Submission Guidelines
We have some specific things we’re looking for, but we also love unique. We’re dedicated to helping writers get published in almost any genre or type. Below you can find the more detailed submission guidelines regarding what we will consider and what we will not.
Please pay special attention to what we don’t publish — repeatedly submitting pieces that flaunt those expectations will land you on our blacklist.
What We Publish
Most pieces require a word count of 500-2,000 words, unless otherwise noted below. Most works allow for any genre as well, however, please note (from the “We Don’t Publish” list that follows after) that there is some content we won’t publish:
- Poetry: Any type. Any length for PDF magazine issues. Blog poetry must have a minimum of 50 words.
- Flash fiction: Any genre. 250-500 words for Magazines. 350-600 for Blog.
- Short Fiction: Any genre. 10,000 words hard max. If published to the Blog, it will be split into serialized pieces of roughly 2,000 words each.
- Opinion Essay: 5,000 max. May be on just about any topic out there, but preference given to pieces that fit our themes.
- Visual Artwork: Any genre. Pay close attention to our list of unwanted content.
- Song Lyrics: Any genre.
- Faith-Related: Any religion. Must be respectful of other faith viewpoints.
- Writers’ Resources: Tips, tricks, and useful suggestions for the crafting of any or all creative works.
- Artist Profiles: We love hearing about other artists of all types and sharing their works with the world.
- Personal essays: 5,000 words max. Share a personal story from your experiences that you feel others would find interest in as well.
- Media and Performance Reviews: For books, music, film, theatre, video and board games, or television. Any genre that falls within our publishing preferences.
What We Don’t Publish
Do not submit any of the following. We’re not interested, and if you bother us with these too many times, we will blacklist you.
- Any work, visual or otherwise, that disparages through hatred, bigotry, or discrimination any other person for their faith, race, age, culture, gender, orientation, or any other perceived difference.
- Any work containing graphic violence, excessive blood or gore, or dark or intense horror.
- Any work containing erotica or rape. A piece may reference such topics to make a point or to share a personal experience, but any content of this type must occur “off-page”.
- Any nude images. We occasionally work with and are read by minors, and we’re dedicated to keeping this space appropriate for them.
- Any work objectifying another human.
- Any work that has already been published through another publication or publishing house. We will only accept pre-published pieces if they were self-published on your own platforms or the former publication no longer exists.
- Any full length manuscripts. Do not submit pieces that exceed our word count limits.
Other Useful Information
- Fees: There is no reading fee for submissions to the MockingOwl Roost. There is also no editing fee for the work we do to prepare your piece for publication.
- Short bio: Our forms offer you the opportunity to submit a 100 word or less bio, with the option to add links to whatever website or public accounts that you wish to share. Make sure to have that ready to speed along the submission process.
- Magazine or Blog? Our forms also offer the opportunity to state which Magazine Theme or Blog Series you’ve intended your piece for. However, we reserve the right to make our own decisions on its final placement. If you’re not sure where (or if) your piece fits, that’s not a problem. Every piece will be considered for every location before we make our final decisions.
- Simultaneous Submissions: We accept simultaneous submissions, with these conditions:
- You must inform us on the submission form.
- If your submission is accepted elsewhere before we’ve commissioned it, inform us immediately, and we’ll release it with no hard feelings.
- If we accept your submission for publication, you will withdraw it from any additional publications you submitted it to until 60 days after its publication date with us. (see Rights below) Failure to do so may make us more leery of accepting you again.
- After we’ve accepted your submission and you’ve agreed to publication, we’re considered to be under contract together as publisher and author. Only legal or other rare but legitimate issues should break this. If a situation arises on your end, discuss it with us immediately.
- Multiple submissions: We gladly accept multiple submissions! Please refer to the Submission Period listings at the top of this page, as our limits often change per Period.
- Rights: We claim the following:
- First Rights (the right to publish your story for the first time, with a 60-day period wherein the work is not published elsewhere), and
- Non-Exclusive Archival Rights (meaning we have the right to keep a copy of the story on our website/magazine).
- Writers and artists maintain all other rights, including full copyright, to their works.
- Response Times: We respond to every submission, whether we accept it for publication or not. This means it may take a little extra time, but our goal is to provide insight to help you improve. We do our best to respond within a month of the submission period’s closure, but depending on our workload, you may hear from us much sooner or sometimes a bit later. A couple things to keep in mind:
- Sometimes works are well-crafted but don’t fit our publication. If that’s the case, we’ll let you know.
- If we reject your piece but invite you to edit it and resubmit later, please do, because we really do mean it.
- Current pay rates: We believe artists should be paid for their efforts, and we’re working toward becoming a space that can do just that. For now though, we are a fully volunteer operation helping you to get published while keeping our lights running via some rather slim pockets. We’ll be delighted to update everyone when that changes!
- Confidentiality: We never share your personal information with anyone outside of the Editorial Staff.