We published issue 28.1 in August 2024, and we're now reading for 28.2, which will print in December. We are accepting submissions until October 15 OR when we have received our maximum allowable submissions using this platform, whichever comes first. If you do not see a genre listed as open below, it is because we have reached our cap for that genre.

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Dunes Review guidelines:

We welcome work from writers at all stages of their careers living anywhere in the world. We are committed to including a wide variety of voices. We are open to many styles and aesthetics, but please read the following carefully to dive a little deeper into what we're looking for. 

The Dunes Review is published in northern lower Michigan, a place of exquisite natural beauty and hardy local culture. A small group of community-minded people launched this journal in 1996 with the original purpose of supporting emerging local writers and the local writing scene. Since then, our sense of readership and authorship has expanded outside of our region. We are proud of our publication, the writers we publish, and the community that comes into being with each issue.

Please think about the following when you submit to us:

* Place is really important to us. Not only physical place, but the place created in a piece of writing. The feeling of being rooted in any somewhere grounds our work. If your work expresses or includes a significant tie to a significant somewhere, we are bound to love it.

* You and your work do not necessarily need a tie to a Michigan location, but we do appreciate work that fits Michigan-like themes or motifs. We invite you to read an issue or two to get a feel for what that can look like.

* We want to be moved by a piece. We want the piece to invite us into the space it creates, to draw us in from the very first line with image, or sound, with sense, with lack of sense. We want to be drawn toward an emotional center of gravity that is navigable by readers. Language pyrotechnics are not enough to move us. We need a there there.

* We admire good craftsmanship. 

Finally, please follow our guidelines below and for each genre. They really do matter.

Submissions are accepted only via Submittable. We do not consider work sent through postal mail or email. Any submissions sent through email will not be read or responded to. 

Please include a cover letter in the cover letter section that includes your contact information, title(s) of your work, and a third-person bio of 50 words or less. Please don’t send us a rant or your entire resume. Most submitters are kind and friendly and that makes our work even more satisfying. Please be clear about the name under which you’d like to be published, especially if it differs from the name on your Submittable account.

Simultaneous submissions are fine. If any of your work is accepted elsewhere, congratulations! Please leave a note in Submittable to withdraw your piece.

You may send work in more than one genre. However, you may send work only ONCE per genre per reading period, including withdrawn submissions. Excess submissions will be declined unread.

We assume work to be finalized upon submission, and accordingly request that you do not withdraw work, revise, and resubmit it during the same reading period.

We do not publish:

* Previously published work. (Work that has appeared on your blog, Facebook page, or that is publicly available online without a login is considered published.) Submitting your work is an affirmation that you are the original author and that you retain the rights to your work.

* Unsolicited book reviews

* Author interviews

* Journalism or academic writing

* Speculative fiction

* Graphic sexual accounts

We aim to respond within 2-3 months of submission but sometimes the volume of submissions and circumstances beyond our control slow us down. We are all volunteers and reasonable people. If it’s been more than 3 months, you won’t offend us if you send us a message through Submittable to check on things.

You may have noticed that some journals close submissions before the published date. That sometimes happens to us, and it is an automatic function driven by the submission limit we set with Submittable. To avoid that problem, we advise you to submit early and not wait until the last minute. 

Finally, due to the volume of submissions received, we regret that we cannot give feedback.

Payment comes in the form of two copies of the journal, or one digital copy for international contributors. We also invite contributors to read at the issue's launch celebration in Traverse City, Michigan, when circumstances allow for a public reading. Sometimes we also host a virtual reading. We often nominate selected work for the Pushcart Prize.