Submission Guidelines

Haymaker was founded as a magazine to reflect our small, Midwestern college town, surrounded by farms and nature, unique among its bigger Rust Belt neighbors. We are interested in thought provoking work, grounded in that natural world. We believe the quotidian, daily world to be consequential and essential to human experiences. While these environs may sound like traditional Americana, work that expresses them need not be. We intend Haymaker to be a space for formal experimentation to exist alongside new work in traditional modes.

  • We are open to submissions in 2024 from January through March. Please submit no more than once per genre category per reading period.

  • Simultaneous submissions are accepted and encouraged; please let us know promptly if your work is picked up elsewhere. 

  • Please submit work itself without any identifying information or contact information in heading or footing. Include a maximum 100 word bio on the submission form. 

  • If you feel your work defies traditional genre categorization, please choose the category that it most resembles and note how you would better describe it in your cover letter. 

  • Please submit all work in .docx format. See our specific genre guidelines.

  • Unfortunately, we are not a paying publication at this time. We offer three copies of the magazine to all contributors. 

  • All rights revert to the author upon publication. We appreciate your online shoutouts and acknowledgments if work that originally appeared here is included in any full-length publications, chapbooks, or dissertations/theses. 

Genre Guidelines

Poetry

Please submit up to four pages in any style. 

We accept and encourage formal and formatting experimentation, along with traditional styles. For all selected work, we will do our best to adapt your formatted style to the page, and we will reach out if we have any issues. 

Visual Art & Graphic Narrative

We are proud to accept submissions of visual art and graphic narrative. With funding realities meeting our commitment to producing print media, we are primarily able to publish grayscale/black & white with extremely limited opportunities for full-color cover images (one per issue). Any file type is fine for submissions; we may request different file formats upon publication.

Short Fiction

We accept short fiction submissions of up to 1500 words double spaced. Please left-align your text without justification. Include title and word count without author name at the top of the first page. Include page numbers without name.

Translations

We are happy to accept creative works translated into English from the following languages: German, Italian, Spanish, and Urdu. Please include both the original and translated works with original author information, and adhere to the above genre guidelines. You must already possess permission for translation publication rights at the time of submission. 

Short Nonfiction

We accept short nonfiction submissions of up to 1500 words double spaced. Please left-align your text without justification. Include title and word count without author name at the top of the first page. Include page numbers without name.  

Drama

We accept submissions of self-contained, one-act plays of a maximum of 10 pages.