About The Writer’s Chronicle

A forum for essays and interviews on the craft of writing, The Writer’s Chronicle serves a wide community of writers, students, teachers, and professionals. We strive to provide readers with insightful, engaging, and diverse perspectives on literature, creative writing, and teaching.

The editors look for articles that engage the greater creative writing community and demonstrate an excellent working knowledge of literary issues. We periodically seek submissions for specific topics that are relevant to current events as they affect the craft and careers of writers. These featured topics will be announced on our social media pages and will appear as separate submission opportunities on our Submittable page. See below for more information on each submission category.

If you have a topic you would like to write about that doesn’t fall into one of the below categories, send it anyway! We want to see work that engages with the writing world as a whole, and we are open to a wide array of topics. If you have questions about what kinds of topics we will accept, email us at chronicle@awpwriter.org.

Unless otherwise specified, articles can be up to 5,000 words, but we welcome shorter pieces as well.

What We Publish

We accept a variety of submissions to The Writer’s Chronicle. Below are a few of our suggested categories:

Essays on the Craft of Writing:

All craft essays must analyze an element of creative writing. They should contain examples to illustrate the writerly advice they offer. Using more than one author to illustrate your analysis is recommended.

Interviews:

We feature interviews with well-known and up-and-coming authors. In the past, we have published interviews with such authors as Nikki Finney, Yusef Komunyakaa, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Vijay Seshadri, Gregory Pardlo, and many others. We especially appreciate interviews that include discussions of writing craft, the evolution of the author’s own work, and literary influences and inspirations. We prefer interviews that have been revised heavily in the interest of accuracy, concision, and style. We only publish interviews that have been approved in proofs by their subjects.

Profiles and Appreciations:

The Writer’s Chronicle also features profiles and appreciations of contemporary writers that include a close reading of an author’s work and a description of the author’s contributions to our culture. While you may draw on your own experience, profiles should focus on an author you admire and not be overly self-referential.

Please note that, alongside interviews and profiles, we publish excerpts from recently published or forthcoming work. We will ask that authors provide audio or video recordings of the excerpted work to accompany the interview or profile.

Featured Topics:

We will periodically seek submissions on specific topics that are relevant to current events. We will announce these topics on our social media accounts and create separate categories in Submittable for these articles. To find out what topics we are looking for, visit our Submittable account and upload your submission to the appropriate category.

What We Pay

We buy first serial rights and electronic rights for all articles accepted for publication. We pay $18 per 100 words for accepted pieces. Authors are paid upon publication. Accepted articles will be published online as well as in The Writer’s Chronicle App.

General Guidelines

We currently accept submissions via Submittable only. Simultaneous submissions are accepted but must be noted as such in your cover letter. We will try to respond within three months, though sometimes the ebb and flow of manuscripts extends our response time. Please credit your sources within the text of your submission and include hyperlinks to any online sources.

Permissions

If you quote a poem, song, or short-short story in its entirety, it is your responsibility to secure and pay for that permission. We recommend that you limit quotes to fair use and avoid quoting whole works, as many trade publishers charge high fees for permissions.

How to Submit

To submit online, visit our Submittable portal. Choose the appropriate category and enter your contact information. Please upload your submission as a single file in .doc format only. Include cover letter and bio information in the space provided on the submission form.