The Lemonwood Quarterly seeks the best English language short stories and plays we can find. Our magazine strives to offer readers exquisite, well-crafted, stories and plays that illuminate underexplored regions of the human condition. In particular, we seek to highlight fresh and authentic portrayals of individuals that, as a group, hold up half the sky, and yet in popular culture have often been marginalized into one-dimensional stereotypes. 

We especially seek out stories with female protagonists who are well into adulthood. There’s no minimum age requirement, but if your protagonist is not at least over thirty years old or so, it could be difficult for them to carry forward the type of stories we aim to publish. We definitely are not looking for coming-of-age stories. We are excited to showcase stories with protagonists who have already passed through those earlier milestones or hurdles and are at a different point in their lives. 

We welcome and encourage submissions from writers of every gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality —including writers without MFA degrees or previously published work, and whose perspectives might be underrepresented in the literary world.