Hayden's Ferry Review is the international literary journal out of Arizona State University.
General Notes on Submission (or withdrawal)
- For our PRINT issues: Please send one submission per genre at a time, and wait for a response before you submit additional work. If you submit more than one submission, we will not read the second one. Please double-check that you are submitting in the correct genre. Work submitted in the incorrect genre will be declined.
- For our WEB issues: please send one submission at a time, and wait for a response before you submit additional work. If you submit more than one submission, we will not read the second one.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome. If your work is accepted elsewhere, please notify the editors immediately by adding a message to your submission in Submittable.
- Withdraw your submission using Submittable. if you are only withdrawing a section of your work (for example: 1/3 poems), add a message to your submission in Submittable.
- Please limit your poetry submissions to a maximum of 3 poems totaling up to 8 pages.
- Please limit your prose submissions to under 20 pages.
- All prose should be double-spaced.
- We are always open to submissions of visual art and translations.
- Contributors receive one copy of the issue in which they appear. Additional copies may be purchased for $6 each up to 5 copies.
- We do not accept previously published material - this includes work that’s been published on social media and Substack. (See exception for art submissions.)
- We do not consider book-length works.
- Our goal is to respond to submissions within six months. Please only reach out about your submission status after six months have passed.
- Submitters are strongly encouraged to read the journal before submitting: to subscribe, visit http://haydensferryreview.com/store.
- Anyone affiliated with ASU (staff, faculty, and graduate/undergraduate students) should refrain from submitting to HFR until they have been unaffiliated for three years.
- If you have previously been published in HFR's print journal or a web issue, please wait 2 years from your publication date before submitting again.
- By submitting, you are agreeing to receive occasional newsletter emails from us. You are welcome to opt out at any time and a link to do so will be included in each newsletter.
PLEASE NOTE: We no longer accept submissions by mail. We will only review work that has been received through Submittable.
A Note on the Submission Fee
We know the $3.00 submission fee might be a pain, but we hope that you will rest assured knowing the money we receive goes toward supporting HFR's continued success as a supportive environment for our contributors. We all want to thank you for your trust in sending us your work.
Free Submissions for Underrepresented Writers
At HFR, we believe that as a literary journal we have the responsibility to publish creative work that reflects diverse experiences, identities, and cultures on both a national and global scale. We are especially committed to uplifting the voices of those who have long been marginalized and underrepresented.
Towards this cause, we will have at least 50 free submissions in each genre for underrepresented voices. If you consider yourself to fit into this category, please submit for free to “Free Submissions for Underrepresented Writers.” Among the many types of underrepresentation that exist in literature, we particularly encourage Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and those who belong to the LGBTQIA+ and disability communities to submit to HFR.
We do not discriminate on any impermissible basis, including race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, or disability. Anyone without regard to these categories is welcome to submit as an underrepresented writer if they consider their experiences or identities to be underrepresented in the literary industry. If you have any questions please email us (haydensferryreview at gmail dot com).
A note on accessibility: It has come to our attention that Submittable may not be accessible to visually impaired writers. HFR is committed to accessibility and wants to receive submissions from all writers equally. If you are a visually impaired writer who is currently unable to submit via Submittable due to accessibility issues, you may email your submission as an attachment in .pdf format to haydensferryreview AT gmail.com. Note that submissions received via email which are outside the current submission period, or do not suit the current call(s) or current guidelines, will not receive a response. If you have questions concerning this policy, please email us at the above address
About the Contest
HFR will accept contest submissions in poetry and fiction between Feb 1-28, 2025. This year's poetry judge is Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of Not Here, and This Way to Sugar. This year’s fiction judge is Gwen Kirby, author of Shit Cassandra Saw.
There will be two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Hayden’s Ferry Review (online in summer 2025 and in the fall/winter 2025 print issue) for a poem or a group of poems and a work of fiction. A runner-up in each category will receive $250 and publication. All entries are considered for publication.
Fiction Judge: Gwen Kirby
Gwen E. Kirby’s debut collection is Shit Cassandra Saw, available from Penguin Books and her stories appear in One Story, Tin House, Guernica, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. Currently, she is an assistant professor of English at Carleton College, where she teaches creative writing and literature.
Guidelines & entry fee
Submit a short story or novel excerpt of up to 20 pages.
The $23 entry fee includes a 1-year print subscription (US addresses). Your 1-year subscription will begin with our spring/summer 2025 issue 76. Current subscribers will receive a 1-year renewal. Writers may submit multiple entries, but each entry must include its own $23 fee.
*For international addresses outside of the US, please submit to the "HFR CONTEST 2025: FICTION ($15 submission)" queue, which comes with a 1-year digital subscription. If you have an international shipping address and are interested in a 1-year print subscription, we are happy to accommodate this with an additional shipping fee. Please get in touch before submitting and no later than February 20th to discuss details at haydensferryreview (at) gmail (dot) com.*
We will accept free submissions during a short free submissions window or until we hit our cap of 50 in each genre. *Please subscribe to our free newsletter by February 3rd. We’ll let our subscribers know via newsletter when our free submissions period will take place.* All will be able to submit for free during the free submission period or until we hit our cap; however, only newsletter subscribers will know in advance exactly when the free submission period will take place. Free submissions do not come with a 1-year subscription.
Judges will pick the winners and runners-up from a list of finalists chosen by HFR editors. All entries are considered for publication in the fall/winter 2025 print issue. We do not read submissions anonymously.
How to submit
Between Feb 1-28, submit your work to the appropriate genre at https://hfr.submittable.com/
Submitted work must be original work by the writer and unpublished. If your work is accepted elsewhere for publication, please withdraw your submission. If only a part of your poetry submission has been accepted elsewhere, please leave a note in Submittable.
Eligibility
Close friends, family, or former and current students of the judges should refrain from submitting. We define a "former or current student" as someone who has done a semester-length course with the judge or who the judge has served as a thesis advisor. If you attended a one- or two-week-long workshop or similar with the judge, you are still eligible.
If you were published in one of HFR's print journals or web issues in the past two years, you CAN submit to this contest. (See our "general notes on submission" for specific guidelines for our print and web issues, which may differ from contest guidelines.)
Anyone affiliated with ASU (staff, faculty, and graduate/undergraduate students) is not eligible to submit to this contest and should refrain from submitting to HFR until they have been unaffiliated from ASU for three years.
All individuals are able to submit without regard to sex, race, national origin, religion, disability or any other characteristic protected by law.
About the Contest
HFR will accept contest submissions in poetry and fiction between Feb 1-28, 2025. This year's poetry judge is Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of Not Here, and This Way to Sugar. This year’s fiction judge is Gwen Kirby, author of Shit Cassandra Saw.
There will be two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Hayden’s Ferry Review (online in summer 2025 and in the fall/winter 2025 print issue) for a poem or a group of poems and a work of fiction. A runner-up in each category will receive $250 and publication. All entries are considered for publication.
Fiction Judge: Gwen Kirby
Gwen E. Kirby’s debut collection is Shit Cassandra Saw, available from Penguin Books and her stories appear in One Story, Tin House, Guernica, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. Currently, she is an assistant professor of English at Carleton College, where she teaches creative writing and literature.
Guidelines & entry fee
Submit a short story or novel excerpt of up to 20 pages.
The $15 entry fee includes a 1-year digital subscription. Your 1-year subscription will begin with our spring/summer 2025 issue 76. Current subscribers will receive a 1-year renewal. Writers may submit multiple entries, but each entry must include its own $15 fee.
*If you have an international shipping address and are interested in a 1-year print subscription, we are happy to accommodate this with an additional shipping fee. Please get in touch before submitting and no later than February 25th to discuss details at haydensferryreview (at) gmail (dot) com.*
We will accept free submissions during a short free submissions window or until we hit our cap of 50 in each genre. *Please subscribe to our free newsletter by February 3rd. We’ll let our subscribers know via newsletter when our free submissions period will take place.* All will be able to submit for free during the free submission period or until we hit our cap; however, only newsletter subscribers will know in advance exactly when the free submission period will take place. Free submissions do not come with a 1-year subscription.
Judges will pick the winners and runners-up from a list of finalists chosen by HFR editors. All entries are considered for publication in the fall/winter 2025 print issue. We do not read submissions anonymously.
How to submit
Between Feb 1-28, submit your work to the appropriate genre at https://hfr.submittable.com/
Submitted work must be original work by the writer and unpublished. If your work is accepted elsewhere for publication, please withdraw your submission. If only a part of your poetry submission has been accepted elsewhere, please leave a note in Submittable.
Eligibility
Close friends, family, or former and current students of the judges should refrain from submitting. We define a "former or current student" as someone who has done a semester-length course with the judge or who the judge has served as a thesis advisor. If you attended a one- or two-week-long workshop or similar with the judge, you are still eligible.
If you were published in one of HFR's print journals or web issues in the past two years, you CAN submit to this contest. (See our "general notes on submission" for specific guidelines for our print and web issues, which may differ from contest guidelines.)
Anyone affiliated with ASU (staff, faculty, and graduate/undergraduate students) is not eligible to submit to this contest and should refrain from submitting to HFR until they have been unaffiliated from ASU for three years.
All individuals are able to submit without regard to sex, race, national origin, religion, disability or any other characteristic protected by law.
About the Contest
HFR will accept contest submissions in poetry and fiction between Feb 1-28, 2025. This year's poetry judge is Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of Not Here, and This Way to Sugar. This year’s fiction judge is Gwen Kirby, author of Shit Cassandra Saw.
There will be two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Hayden’s Ferry Review (online in summer 2025 and in the fall/winter 2025 print issue) for a poem or a group of poems and a work of fiction. A runner-up in each category will receive $250 and publication. All entries are considered for publication.
Poetry Judge: Hieu Minh Nguyen
Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), which went on to win the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. Some awards and fellowships Hieu has received include: the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a McKnight Writing Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Atlantic, Poetry London, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Hieu lives in Oakland and is a Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University.
Guidelines & Entry Fee
Submit 1-3 poems, totaling up to 10 pages. The $23 entry fee includes a 1-year print subscription (US addresses) Your 1-year subscription will begin with our spring/summer 2025 issue 76. Current subscribers will receive a 1-year renewal. Writers may submit multiple entries, but each entry must include its own $23 fee.
*For international addresses outside of the US, please submit to the "HFR CONTEST 2025: POETRY ($15 submission)" queue, which comes with a 1-year digital subscription. If you have an international shipping address and are interested in a 1-year print subscription, we are happy to accommodate this with an additional shipping fee. Please get in touch before submitting and no later than February 20th to discuss details at haydensferryreview (at) gmail (dot) com.*
We will accept free submissions during a short free submissions window or until we hit our cap of 50 in each genre. *Please subscribe to our free newsletter by February 3rd. We’ll let our subscribers know via newsletter when our free submissions period will take place.* All will be able to submit for free during the free submission period or until we hit our cap; however, only newsletter subscribers will know in advance exactly when the free submission period will take place. Free submissions do not come with a 1-year subscription.
Judges will pick the winners and runners-up from a list of finalists chosen by HFR editors. All entries are considered for publication in the fall/winter 2025 print issue. We do not read submissions anonymously.
How to Submit
Between Feb 1-28, submit your work to the appropriate genre at https://hfr.submittable.com/
Submitted work must be original work by the writer and unpublished. If your work is accepted elsewhere for publication, please withdraw your submission. If only a part of your poetry submission has been accepted elsewhere, please leave a note in Submittable.
Eligibility
Close friends, family, or former and current students of the judges should refrain from submitting. We define a "former or current student" as someone who has done a semester-length course with the judge or who the judge has served as a thesis advisor. If you attended a one- or two-week-long workshop or similar with the judge, you are still eligible.
If you were published in one of HFR's print journals or web issues in the past two years, you CAN submit to this contest. (See our "general notes on submission" for specific guidelines for our print and web issues, which may differ from contest guidelines.)
Anyone affiliated with ASU (staff, faculty, and graduate/undergraduate students) is not eligible to submit to this contest and should refrain from submitting to HFR until they have been unaffiliated from ASU for three years.
All individuals are able to submit without regard to sex, race, national origin, religion, disability or any other characteristic protected by law.
About the Contest
HFR will accept contest submissions in poetry and fiction between Feb 1-28, 2025. This year's poetry judge is Hieu Minh Nguyen, author of Not Here, and This Way to Sugar. This year’s fiction judge is Gwen Kirby, author of Shit Cassandra Saw.
There will be two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Hayden’s Ferry Review (online in summer 2025 and in the fall/winter 2025 print issue) for a poem or a group of poems and a work of fiction. A runner-up in each category will receive $250 and publication. All entries are considered for publication.
Fiction Judge: Hieu Minh Nguyen
Hieu Minh Nguyen is a queer Vietnamese American poet and performer based in Minneapolis. He is the author of the poetry collections Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018) and This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014), which was named a finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the Minnesota Book Award. His work has appeared on the PBS Newshour and in Poetry magazine, Gulf Coast, BuzzFeed, Poetry London, Nashville Review, Indiana Review, among others. The recipient of a 2017 NEA fellowship for poetry, Nguyen is a Kundiman fellow, a poetry editor for Muzzle magazine, and an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College. In 2018, Nguyen was awarded the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Guidelines & entry fee
Submit 1-3 poems, totaling up to 10 pages.
The $15 entry fee includes a 1-year digital subscription. Your 1-year subscription will begin with our spring/summer 2025 issue 76. Current subscribers will receive a 1-year renewal. Writers may submit multiple entries, but each entry must include its own $15 fee.
*If you have an international shipping address and are interested in a 1-year print subscription, we are happy to accommodate this with an additional shipping fee. Please get in touch before submitting and no later than February 25th to discuss details at haydensferryreview (at) gmail (dot) com.*
We will accept free submissions during a short free submissions window or until we hit our cap of 50 in each genre. *Please subscribe to our free newsletter by February 3rd. We’ll let our subscribers know via newsletter when our free submissions period will take place.* All will be able to submit for free during the free submission period or until we hit our cap; however, only newsletter subscribers will know in advance exactly when the free submission period will take place. Free submissions do not come with a 1-year subscription.
Judges will pick the winners and runners-up from a list of finalists chosen by HFR editors. All entries are considered for publication in the fall/winter 2025 print issue. We do not read submissions anonymously.
How to submit
Between Feb 1-28, submit your work to the appropriate genre at https://hfr.submittable.com/
Submitted work must be original work by the writer and unpublished. If your work is accepted elsewhere for publication, please withdraw your submission. If only a part of your poetry submission has been accepted elsewhere, please leave a note in Submittable.
Eligibility
Close friends, family, or former and current students of the judges should refrain from submitting. We define a "former or current student" as someone who has done a semester-length course with the judge or who the judge has served as a thesis advisor. If you attended a one- or two-week-long workshop or similar with the judge, you are still eligible.
If you were published in one of HFR's print journals or web issues in the past two years, you CAN submit to this contest. (See our "general notes on submission" for specific guidelines for our print and web issues, which may differ from contest guidelines.)
Anyone affiliated with ASU (staff, faculty, and graduate/undergraduate students) is not eligible to submit to this contest and should refrain from submitting to HFR until they have been unaffiliated from ASU for three years.
All individuals are able to submit without regard to sex, race, national origin, religion, disability or any other characteristic protected by law.
Applying to CantoMundo 2025? Yes, you're in the right place, thanks to our sister organization, Hayden's Ferry Review.
CantoMundo is open to Latinx poets aged 18+.
CantoMundo is dedicated to serving Latinx poets and poetry across regional, aesthetic, ethnic, racial (e.g. Afro-Latinx/Caribbean/Indigenous) linguistic, generational, and LGBTQIA+ spectrums. Our work is motivated by the understanding that Latinx voices, despite historic silencing, have always resounded within the chorus of American poetry.
For Issue 76, we're accepting general un-themed submissions in each genre. We're also hoping to feature a small folio on the theme of maximalism. If you feel that your piece fits this theme (see below), please check the respective box on the submission form. Even if the work is not quite right for the folio's theme, we will still consider it for Issue 76!
Special Themed Folio - Maximalism
For this folio within Issue 76, we're looking for work that celebrates more is more for the sake of more. Send us work that uses too many adjectives, that are overly-punctuated, poems that are sonically overwhelming, that could be seen as overly intense. We want your excess.
How does leaning into maximalism, in being “too much,” help us express our complexities, multiplicities, and digressions?
Examples of work we’re interested in include “Equestrian Monuments (A Litany)” by Luis Chaves, “Planet Dread” by Safiya Sinclair, “Feed” by Tommy Pico, “my sweet angel on earth thank you for this life” by Jenny Zhang, and White Teeth by Zadie Smith.
Translation submissions are open year-round and during the months we open for submissions in other genres for a forthcoming issue, we’ll also open submissions for 100 free translation submissions under the Submittable category “TRANSLATION: Free Submissions for Underrepresented Writers - Issue X.”
Submission Guidelines
Translations submissions should be works translated into English from any other non-English language, and must include the original text along with the translated text.
- Translators should secure rights to translate the work they are submitting. Please confirm in your cover letter that you have the rights.
- Please only submit to one call for submissions at a time.
- Submit up to 6 poems/micro-fictions, or one essay/story.
- Prose should be double-spaced. We do not have a strict word count, though we favor pieces under 17 pages, and rarely accept work that is over 20. Please do not submit pieces that are over 25 pages.
- Please include your entire submission in one file, and be sure your name and contact information are included on the first page of the file.
- All work should be uploaded through our submissions manager. Acceptable file formats include .doc, .docx, and .pdf.
- Please send one submission per genre at a time, and wait for a response before you submit additional work.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome. If your work is accepted elsewhere, please notify the editors immediately by adding a message to your submission in Submittable.
- Withdraw your submission using Submittable. If you are only withdrawing a section of your work (for example: 2/5 poems), add a message to your submission.
- We do not accept previously published material.
- We do not consider book-length works. Submitters are strongly encouraged to read the journal before submitting. Sample work from current and past issues is available on our website.
- Upon acceptance, we will request a translator's note on your translation process (similar to an artist statement).
Free Submissions for Underrepresented Writers
At HFR, we believe that as a literary journal we have the responsibility to publish creative work that reflects diverse experiences, identities, and cultures on both a national and global scale. We are especially committed to uplifting the voices of those who have long been marginalized and underrepresented.
Towards this cause, we will have 100 free submissions in each genre for underrepresented voices. If you consider yourself to fit into this category, please submit for free to “Free Submissions for Underrepresented Writers.” Among the many types of underrepresentation that exist in literature, we particularly encourage Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and those who belong to the LGBTQIA+ and disability communities to submit to HFR.
We do not discriminate on any impermissible basis, including race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, or disability. Anyone without regard to these categories is welcome to submit as an underrepresented writer if they consider their experiences or identities to be underrepresented in the literary industry. If you have any questions please email us (haydensferryreview at gmail dot com).
Anonymous Demographic Survey
After submitting your work, we'd appreciate it if you'd consider filling out our optional and anonymous Issue 76 Demographic Survey. Your responses to this survey will help us better understand who our calls for submissions are reaching and better fulfill our mission!