Penn State Harrisburg's fall literary and arts journal Fission Now Open for Submissions

Submission Deadline: Friday, Oct. 24 Submissions close at 11:59 pm.

Details on how to submit and how to increase your chances of acceptance are below.

Dear Penn State students,

Penn State Harrisburg's literary and arts journal Fission is seeking the best short-form creative writing and black-and-white graphic art from current Penn State students (both undergraduates and graduates). We are particularly interested in brief creative writing (i.e., poetry, flash-fiction, micro-essays, and one-sentence stories) as well as black-and-white graphic art (i.e., comics, illustration, photography, etc.). Fission will publish all selected work in an online journal and possibly also in a print journal (TBD).


As in previous years, we seek to publish the best creative writing from PSU students here at our home campus and from campuses across the Commonwealth. The screening process can be selective, so please send us your best work! 


Thanks in advance. - The Editors


Continue reading below to learn about our submission guidelines and what our editors tend to find appealing.


SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Writing: All written submissions should be brief. Poems should be no longer than 35 lines (though less is often more, for poems) with fewer than 70 characters per line. Flash fiction, micro-essays, and experimental writing (i.e., short-short stories and brief creative nonfiction/ memoir/ hybrid forms) should be between 100 and 500 words. We have a soft spot for really compelling one-sentence stories. Work that is hybrid, multi-genre, or hard to categorize is encouraged; please state your genre(s) when submitting. All documents should be uploaded as .doc or .docx filetypes. (No Google docs, no PDFs, and no Pages files; do not send us files that need permission to access.)


Work that tends to get our editors excited will use the tools of the writing trade to their full extent. For all written work, we look for pieces that are grounded in strong, clear imagery. We look for short-short stories that have a strong sense of narrative, place, voice, dialogue, and characterization, and we love poems that freely borrow from narrative and lyric traditions, while remaining attentive to things like imagery, diction, metaphor, and simile, and so on. In all things creative writing, strive not for universality or "relatability"; strive to show us what makes specific, lived, human moments exceptional, strange, and interesting, and make us feel like we've learned something about the world, or an individual's place in the world, we didn't know before.


Artwork: Additionally, we are seeking black-and-white graphic art submissions including but not limited to photography, comics/ comix, illustrations, and high-quality photos of visual and/or performing arts (especially if performed or created at PSU!). 

All graphic art must either be in black-and-white or reproduce well in black and white. That is, if you're submitting any artwork that isn't black-and-white already, it should have a high contrast between light and dark areas, so when it is shifted to black and white, which is what we need for our printing purposes, it will look natural in that format.

All artwork should look good on a printed page that is 5" x 7". Photos and artwork should be 72 ppi (pixels per inch) resolution or greater. All artwork should be uploaded as jpeg or tif filetypes.


Let your artwork tell us a story we didn't know we wanted to see. Wow us.


Both Writing and Artwork: Whether you send us writing or artwork, the main criterion for acceptance is quality. All styles, forms, subjects, and themes are welcome. We love to read and view submissions that engage with both personal and contemporary social issues from a uniquely specific and personal point of view. We love work that revels in the small, particular details, that reveals ordinary moments as extraordinary, that challenges us to see the world from a new perspective. You are welcome to submit work on any theme; our journal is an all-inclusive space. We seek to be a "big tent" publication where all readers and writers can come together to find something that appeals to them while opening their minds to experiences they've never had or thought about.


To get a sense of what writing tends to get selected each year, which may increase your own chances of acceptance, check out our recent issue by clicking this linkLinks to an external site., then click on the "Current Issue" tab of Fission.


All submitters must specify which campus they are currently attending, and include their Penn State email for results within the section called "Cover Letter". You may submit multiple entries, but please limit your submissions to 5 creative pieces of any kind.


Simultaneous submission policy: In brief, Fission accepts simultaneous submissions of all creative work, but we ask that submitters notify us promptly if their work is accepted for publication elsewhere and withdraw accepted work(s) using your Submittable submission manager (details below). If you are submitting several creative works to us, please submit each of them separately, so you can withdraw any accepted work(s) while allowing us to consider those that have not been accepted elsewhere. If you don't already have an account (at Submittable.com), please note that it is free and easy to create one.


SUBMITTING YOUR WORK:
To submit your work for our consideration, click this link to our submissions pageLinks to an external site. at Submittable.com. When you do, please note that you will need to create an account at Submittable, which is free and easy to navigate.

ABOUT US: Fission is a student-edited, faculty-advised journal, which publishes in the fall semester. The name of the literary magazine invokes the role that the Penn State Harrisburg campus played in the Cold War when it was the site of the Olmsted Air Force Base. In 2019, for the first time, we began to accept submissions from students who attend any of Penn State's 24 campuses in addition to our own Capital College students, and our student editors and faculty advisor continue to be thrilled with the high caliber of the work we receive. Thank you for entrusting us with your creative work!