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.
Submission Guidelines
Contest Details and Author Compensation
Authors may submit up to four short stories annually, one submission per quarterly issue. (Please do not resubmit the same story unless it has been significantly altered.) Every three months, ten stories or plays are selected for publication in that season's issue of The Lemonwood Quarterly. The authors are awarded $200 payment, and their short story advances to the final round in December for consideration for the $1000 Charlotte Ann Porter Prize for Fiction.
We respond to all submissions within thirty days of the submission window deadline.
What to Submit
The Lemonwood Quarterly seeks the best English-language short stories and plays we can find. We do not publish poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction prose, book reviews, or interviews. We are looking for superbly written stories and play pieces between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Please submit your work as a Word document or pdf. Submissions are read anonymously, so please do not include your name anywhere on the document itself.
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.
Simultaneous Submissions to other publications are fine, but please withdraw your submission immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
All work should be previously unpublished in any form, including online, in blogs, or in print.
Who Should Submit
We welcome and encourage submissions from writers of every gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality —including writers without fancy degrees or previously published work, and whose perspectives might be underrepresented in the literary world. Please do not send us work that includes machine-generated or AI text.
Subscribe to our free newsletter
The best way to know what kind of short stories and plays The Lemonwood Quarterly publishes is to read the magazine! We encourage all authors and playwrights to sign up for our free newsletter of announcements. You will receive our Calls for Submission right into your inbox and will be notified when a new issue of The Lemonwood Quarterly is published. Our magazine is free for all readers, so sign up today!
Follow-up Details
- Authors will receive a contract upon acceptance, and payment upon publication in the quarterly issue. The Lemonwood Quarterly’s publishing agreement includes the following rights: First worldwide electronic publication rights; non-exclusive online rights on our website, and other limited rights. Copyright is retained by the author. Authors are free to resell the work, although we do ask for a 90-day exclusive from our first publication of the work. We ask that whenever an author reprints a piece that first appeared in our magazine, The Lemonwood Quarterly is given acknowledgement as the work’s original publisher.
- In order to draw more readers to the terrific stories, every issue of The Lemonwood Quarterly is launched with a publicity campaign, and every published story is individually promoted on social media. To spread the word about all the great stories, we request that authors participate in the social media promotion to the best of their ability.
- We nominate as many pieces as we can to annual literary prizes such as The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Award and The Best American Short Stories.
Submission Guidelines
Contest Details and Author Compensation
Playwrights may submit up to four plays annually, one submission per quarterly issue. (Please do not resubmit the same script unless it has been significantly altered.) Every three months, ten stories or plays are selected for publication in that season's issue of The Lemonwood Quarterly. The playwrights are awarded $200 payment, and their play advances to the final round in December for consideration for the $500 Hononegah Mack Prize for the Best Play.
We respond to all submissions within thirty days of the submission window deadline.
What to Submit
The Lemonwood Quarterly seeks the best English-language short stories and plays we can find. We do not publish poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction prose, book reviews, or interviews. We are looking for superbly written stories and play pieces between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Please submit your work as a Word document or pdf. Submissions are read anonymously, so please do not include your name anywhere on the document itself.
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.
Simultaneous Submissions to other publications are fine, but please withdraw your submission immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
All work should be previously unpublished in any form, including online, in blogs, or in print.
Who Should Submit
We welcome and encourage submissions from writers of every gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality —including writers without fancy degrees or previously published work, and whose perspectives might be underrepresented in the literary world. Please do not send us work that includes machine-generated or AI text.
Subscribe to our free newsletter
The best way to know what kind of short stories and plays The Lemonwood Quarterly publishes is to read the magazine! We encourage all authors and playwrights to sign up for our free newsletter of announcements. You will receive our Calls for Submission right into your inbox and will be notified when a new issue of The Lemonwood Quarterly is published. Our magazine is free for all readers, so sign up today!
Follow-up Details
- Authors will receive a contract upon acceptance, and payment upon publication in the quarterly issue. The Lemonwood Quarterly’s publishing agreement includes the following rights: First worldwide electronic publication rights; non-exclusive online rights on our website, and other limited rights. Copyright is retained by the author. Authors are free to resell the work, although we do ask for a 90-day exclusive from our first publication of the work. We ask that whenever an author reprints a piece that first appeared in our magazine, The Lemonwood Quarterly is given acknowledgement as the work’s original publisher.
- In order to draw more readers, every issue of The Lemonwood Quarterly is launched with a publicity campaign, and every published play is individually promoted on social media. To spread the word about all the great writing, we request that playwrights participate in the social media promotion to the best of their ability.
- We nominate as many pieces as we can to annual literary prizes such as The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Award and The Best American Short Stories.