WHAT are you?
Sky Island Journal is an independent, international, free-access, advertising-free, Pushcart Prize-winning, Best of the Net-winning literary journal.
what is YOUR MISSION?
Our mission is to provide readers around the world with a powerful, focused, advertising-free literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. We believe in removing barriers between readers and access to high quality literature—especially in regions of the world that have traditionally been underserved by English language journals or completely ignored by the literary establishment.
when and where were you established?
Sky Island Journal was established in 2017. Our publication's birthplace and spiritual home is Luna County, New Mexico. The Florida Mountains Wilderness Area is our muse; its landscape is the source of our name, our positive energy, our rugged independence, and our relentless tenacity. We exist where the desert meets the mountains—where the indigenous meets the exotic and the old ways meet the digital frontier.
How Many Readers Do you have?
We have over 150,000 readers in over 150 countries.
How many writers have you published?
In 7 years, we have published over 1,000 writers hailing from 52 countries, and our family of contributors just keeps growing.
What do you publish?
We are dedicated to discovering and publishing the finest original poetry, flash fiction (under 1,000 words), and creative nonfiction (under 1,000 words). We only publish previously unpublished work, written primarily (50% or more) in English.
When do you publish?
We publish quarterly, and we accept submissions year-round.
Who do you publish?
We publish accomplished, established authors—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices.
You must be at least 18 years of age to submit.
What About Artificial Intelligence?
We don’t make any moral judgments about artificial intelligence. In fact, the term “artificial” may soon become a linguistic relic of our bio-chauvinism, one rather telling of our human insecurities. We figure A.I. is just as likely to save us from ourselves as it is to cause our extinction. We can’t control how that will all shake out, but we can control what we publish.
So, we want to be clear that we only publish writing created entirely by humans. We exist to help humans emotionally connect with, and be transported by, one another—on a spirit level—through the beauty, craft, and magic of language. By submitting your work to Sky Island Journal, you are verifying that you—a human author—are entirely responsible for creating the writing you have submitted.
We have tools to help us determine the probability with which A.I. was involved in generating any work that we are considering for publication. Sky Island Journal reserves the right to decline any work, at any time in the publication process, for any reason—including detection scores which indicate a high probability of A.I. generation and a low probability of human created content.
Do you have a print component?
No. We are an online journal, exclusively.
Do I need a subscription to read this journal?
No. We are 100% free-access. No subscriptions. No bullshit paywalls. Anyone with internet access can read everything we publish, for free.
Why does each contributor's work open as a Secure, protected, Read-Only Word document?
We've elected to leave the "scroll-through experience" and pop-up ads to other literary platforms. Our readers demand and deserve a more mindful approach. Each piece of writing that we publish opens as a secure, protected, read-only Word document for an authentic, focused, and immersive experience that encourages a close, intimate, distraction-free reading of the work. That said, every piece of writing that we publish can be opened and read on any device, anywhere in the world, regardless of whether or not it has Word installed on it.
We want your experience with each of our contributor's work to be singular: just as it would be on the printed page, with crisp white paper between your collective fingertips. As a reader, the documents you experience on your device cannot be altered, but they can be easily printed—without any distortion or formatting issues. We love that!
We understand this is a radical departure from how most literary journals present writing to their readers online, but we think it's a refreshing change for the better. It's okay to stop feverishly Tinder-swiping through lit mags. It’s okay to slow down and savor the worlds of words that writers create for you. It’s okay to print a poem and hang it on your fridge, or—gasp—print it, and send it snail mail to someone you love.
What do you mean by “creative nonfiction?”
Creative nonfiction is the truth, told well. Creative nonfiction employs literary devices, techniques, and elements of style more commonly associated with fiction to create a factually accurate nonfiction narrative that reads in a vivid and compelling way. We like to keep ours under 1,000 words.
What do you mean by “flash fiction?”
We define flash fiction as a short story told in fewer than 1,000 words. We welcome and enjoy all genres of flash fiction.
Why do you only publish flash fiction and creative nonfiction “under 1,000 words?”
Sky Island Journal is dedicated to the succinct, elegant craft of concision. We believe that big ideas can live well in small spaces, and we know that many of you do too.
Do you have any RESTRICTIONS regarding poetry?
No. We welcome and enjoy all poetry.
Are you editors or curators?
We are editors, and the two of us have over 40 years of combined experience in the field.
What are you looking for? What aren’t you looking for?
We don’t want to limit our readers; therefore, we don’t want to limit you. We know quality work when we experience it. We don’t mean to be coy, but you need to know that we’re not interested in making your art conform to some preconceived aesthetic. We’re neither presumptuous enough nor pretentious enough to proclaim what "won’t fit" before we even try it on. When it comes to what we publish, we encourage you to read our previous issues, and simply send us your best work; we’ll take it from there.
How do you handle submissions?
In a space where we can be anything, we choose to be kind. We handle every submission with care. There are no grad school screeners, no volunteer readers, no literati taste makers, and no “slush piles” here. We are professionals; it is an honor, a privilege, and a pleasure to experience the world of words inside every submission. As a result, every submission undergoes several cycles of deep reading, real-time discussion, and voting. Every submission—regardless of whether we accept or decline it—receives a prompt, respectful response that lets you know what we appreciated. We do all this in an average of 9 days. This is what every writer deserves. This is what you deserve.
What about cover letters and bios?
We don't want them. We respect your writing enough to experience it on its own merits.
We receive and publish high quality work from writers with diverse backgrounds. Sky Island Journal accomplishes this by not allowing writers to include cover letters or bios with their submissions. This guideline creates a refreshing challenge for well-established professionals who have been favored by literary journals in the past because of their credentials, while simultaneously encouraging emerging voices: writers, young and old, who would normally be rejected out-of-hand by many literary journals because of their lack of pedigree. If we accept your work, we’ll be anxious to get to know who you are. We do not, however, want that information influencing our decisions beforehand. If your writing finds a home with us, we’ll solicit a full bio and author photo to be featured alongside your work.
If your Submittable account automatically populates our submission form with either a cover letter or a bio, be sure to delete that cover letter or bio before filling out the form properly and providing the required information. Any submission that includes either a cover letter or a bio will be declined. All submissions are nonrefundable.
Does this mean you read blind?
Yes. So, please avoid placing any identifying information on the individual pieces you submit. If you forget, you won’t be penalized; we’ll simply remove it before the individual pieces enter their cycles of deep reading, real-time discussion, and voting.
Do you accept simultaneous submissions?
Yes. We love competition, and we encourage simultaneous submissions. Sky Island Journal hails from the American Southwest; it’s a gunslinger with a quick draw and a true aim. We know quality work when we experience it, and, if it happens to be yours, we’ll tip our hats and let you know immediately—no games. We want to be the first publication to give your writing an international audience.
Conversely, if your work isn’t a good fit with us, that doesn’t mean it won’t find a good home somewhere else. In fact, we hope it does, and we’ll let you know as soon as we do; so you can begin that search as soon as possible.
If any of your submitted pieces are accepted elsewhere, please email us immediately. In that email, please clarify which of your works we may still consider for publication. All submissions are nonrefundable.
What is your response time?
Our average response time is 9 days.
This means that half of our responses occur in fewer than 9 days, and half of our responses may take up to 18 days. No submission has ever waited longer than 18 days for a response.
The horror stories of writers waiting a year or more for a response from literary journals—only to receive some thoughtless, rubber-stamp decline—are real. Unfortunately, they happen more often than you might think. Sadly, most writers have acquiesced and grown accustomed to waiting 3-6 months for publications to accept or decline their submissions. With us, those days are over. You are our priority. We respect your craft, and we respect your time.
How do we pull this off? We read, discuss, vote on, and either accept or decline submissions every single day—no days off. We are disciplined, dedicated, and efficient. Nothing can stop us. If literary journals were people, Sky Island Journal would be David Goggins.
What is your acceptance rate?
Our average acceptance rate is 3%.
Don’t let that discourage you. Seriously. In the publication game, the odds are always against you—no matter who you are or what the publication is. Yet, every quarter, we publish 25 to 50 writers—some of them accomplished authors with tremendous publishing credits and some of them emerging writers who’ve never been published anywhere before. So, think of it like basketball; you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. As a creator, we encourage you to trust in the power of your creations. Rally your self-confidence, and shoot your shot.
We mention the number of individual pieces submitted for each issue, and the number of pieces accepted for each issue, at the start of each issue. For the sake of convenience, here are the stats from the last few issues:
Issue 29: 2,505 individual pieces received, 53 individual pieces published: 2.1%
Issue 28: 1,671 individual pieces received, 50 individual pieces published: 3.0%
Issue 27: 1,624 individual pieces received, 57 individual pieces published: 3.5%
Issue 26: 1,498 individual pieces received, 60 individual pieces published: 4.0%
Issue 25: 1,855 individual pieces received, 34 individual pieces published: 1.8%
Issue 24: 1,921 individual pieces received, 53 individual pieces published: 2.8%
Issue 23: 1,536 individual pieces received, 38 individual pieces published: 2.5%
Issue 22: 1,734 individual pieces received, 53 individual pieces published: 3.1%
Are you listed?
Yes. We’re listed and verified on New Pages, Duotrope, Poets & Writers, Chill Subs, and many more.
When can I submit?
We accept submissions year-round, and we publish quarterly. You may submit whenever you like, as often as you like. There is no limit. We are wolves, and we’re always on the hunt for the best new writing. We never rest. We’re relentless, and you should be too.
We are currently reading for Issue 30 ( Winter 2025), and we will be accepting submissions through midnight (MST) on December 31st.
How do I submit?
Like many literary journals, Sky Island Journal only accepts submissions via Submittable, the online submissions manager. You can submit by clicking HERE.
If you don’t already have a Submittable account, you’ll need to create one. Don't worry; it's free, easy, and secure. After you click on the link above, simply "Create your account" to get started.
Do you charge a submission fee?
Yes. Like many literary journals today, we charge a submission fee, via Submittable. Unlike many literary journals today, we are 100% free-access and 100% advertising-free. The former makes the latter possible.
We believe that all our readers around the world deserve a focused and accessible literary experience—free from advertising, paywalls, and subscription fees. So, that is what we deliver. We believe that every writer's work deserves several cycles of deep-reading and real-time discussion. So, that is what we deliver. We believe every writer deserves and a prompt, respectful, individualized response detailing what we appreciate about his or her work (regardless of whether we accept or decline it). So, that is what we deliver. We also believe that writers who submit their work should not have to wait longer than an average of 9 days for a response. So, that is what we deliver.
Unlike many literary journals, we are not affiliated with any university, foundation, corporation, nonprofit, or religious institution. We are not grant funded. We do not indulge in crowdfunding. We neither solicit nor accept donations. We will never beg for tips. We do not sell subscriptions, or have bullshit paywalls to access “premium” content, because we believe that all readers around the world should have free access to high quality literature. We cannot sell print copies because we do not have a print component. We do not have advertising revenue because we refuse to cheapen the literary experience of our readers by subjecting them to ads. We do not run opaque, pie-in-the-sky contests with exorbitant entry fees to pad our coffers.
What does all this mean? It means that we are truly independent. We are not beholden to anyone. It also means that we are a single-revenue source journal.
Our $4.99 submission fee—roughly the same amount of money you’d pay for a coffee at a café, a beer at a pub, or a bottle of water at an airport—is the only thing that keeps us operational. It also allows us to deliver, and Sky Island Journal delivers in ways that few literary journals can.
A single $4.99 submission fee via our secure Submittable page, HERE, covers one of the following:
4-5 poems (in a single document)
2-3 flash fiction pieces under 1,000 words each (in a single document)
2-3 creative nonfiction pieces under 1,000 words each (in a single document)
can you waive your submission fee for writers who live outside of the United states?
Yes. If you live outside of the United States, and paying our submission fee would create either a financial hardship or a security risk for you, please email us with your waiver request at skyislandjournal@gmail.com .
Do you pay? What are The Benefits of Being a Contributor?
No, not in a monetary sense. We wish we could, but as an independent, single-revenue source journal, we simply cannot at this time. Please read the section above if you haven’t already.
Like many print journals that “pay with a copy,” we pay with publication as well. When you become a Sky Island Journal contributor, however, your writing will neither collect dust on some obscure university library shelf nor waste away as some unclickable link in an online table of contents, hidden behind a paywall. Our publication has over 150,000 incredibly diverse and highly engaged readers in over 150 countries. If we publish your work, it will be accessible—in perpetuity—for free—to anyone around the world with an internet connection.
Although we cannot provide monetary payment for publication like some other literary journals do, becoming a Sky Island Journal contributor means that we go the distance for your work—and for you as a writer—in ways that many “paying markets” are unwilling to. At Sky Island Journal, we consider our contributors family, and we are fierce advocates for them. We dedicate ourselves, indefinitely, to their continued success. We work tirelessly to celebrate and promote our contributors on our website, our 3 social media platforms, and our global podcast—Voices from the Sky—long after we publish them. When our contributors have new books out, we actively promote them. When our contributors win major awards, we make sure the whole world knows about it. Check out our Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts to see how we continually promote the accomplishments of our over 1,000+ contributors.
This kind of positive publicity—promoting your writing, building your brand, and exposing your work to a new and diverse readership—in perpetuity—is worth more than any kind of one-and-done token payment could ever be. Too many literary journals completely forget about their contributors after publication; ironically, these are often the same “paying markets” that purport to value writers simply because they can throw a few cents per word at them. As writers ourselves, that has always troubled us. As a contributor, Sky Island Journal will always be an enthusiastic promoter of your work. We’ll always have your back. You’ll be familia. Feel free to ask any of our 1,000+ contributors how good that constant, genuine support feels.
If how we function doesn’t align with your principles as a writer, there are over 3,000 other literary journals that you can submit to, and we encourage you to do so. In the meantime, feel free to enjoy all of our stunning issues—for free—as a reader.
What about rights?
Sky Island Journal acquires First North American Serial Rights and First Electronic Rights for all work that it accepts for publication. Upon publication, all rights are immediately returned to you—the author. We simply ask that any future publications of the work recognize Sky Island Journal as the original publisher.
Do you nominate for awards?
Yes. We nominate for Best of the Net every September, and we nominate for the Pushcart Prize every November.
have your contributors actually won awards for work published by you?
Yes. Our contributors have become Best of the Net winners, and Pushcart Prize winners, for the work they’ve published with us.
What is your privacy policy?
Privacy is power. It is a human right. Unlike some other literary journals, we do not buy, sell, trade, or share anybody's personal information.
What Do you think about 3rd party submission trackers?
Most of them mean well, but be wary of 3rd party submission trackers. The “data” they import and export can be rife with errors and omissions, and their numbers regarding acceptance rates and response times can be wildly inaccurate as a result. Why? Most of the time, it’s all self-reported by the users of these platforms. Remember, any platform’s users only represent a small fraction of the total number of submitters to any particular publication. In addition, users are not always accurate. Users can confuse one publication with another in a flurry of simultaneous submissions, forget that they’ve submitted to a publication, or fail to check their emails and Submittable messages in a timely manner; this happens quite often, and it has an impact on on 3rd party submission tracker data. Sadly, some users can even falsify data and report in bad faith—with impunity—simply because they have an axe to grind with a publication, and the publication often has no recourse.
In all fairness to their users, however, many 3rd party submission trackers often neglect to ask the right questions. They rely on a broad-brush approach to gathering data because their platforms lack the computational structures to properly disaggregate the more complex data they would receive if they were to drill down. The results can be catastrophic for accuracy, but writers often see these platforms' color-coded graphs and reductionist percentages…and trust it all as truth.
Consider this example… “The number of submissions a publication receives in a year” is often used to calculate 3rd party submission tracker acceptance rates. Unfortunately, that number is meaningless because most publications allow a range of individual pieces to be included within a single submission. For example, a single submission to Sky Island Journal could contain 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 poems. Statistically, a writer who sends 5 poems per submission has a significantly greater chance of having a piece accepted than a writer who only sends 1 poem per submission. Unless a writer only submits 1 piece of writing per submission (which is rare), there is really no such thing as accepting or declining a whole submission; we consider each individual piece of writing within a submission for acceptance or decline, and, when we accept, we rarely accept all the pieces within a single submission. Many publications function this way. Regardless of who is doing the reporting—a 3rd party submission tracker or a publication itself—it’s important to remember that any acceptance rate data which considers “the number of submissions a publication receives in a year,” without accounting for how many individual pieces of writing were included within each of those submissions, is inherently flawed and inaccurate. This omission can be used by publications to intentionally skew data in ways that benefit them. It can also give writers a false sense of what their chances of publication actually are.
We think it’s okay to use 3rd party submission trackers as general guides to help you discover more about other writers’ experiences with literary journals that are NOT transparent with their numbers. Since so many literary journals are so opaque, we believe that these platforms do provide a valuable service in this regard. As a writer, however, you have to put the work in and personally check out the publications you want to submit to. The editors of those publications are the only ones who truly know all of their numbers, and, in our opinion, the only publications you should consider submitting to are the ones that are voluntarily transparent with those numbers—like us.
How can i contact you?
You may contact us at skyislandjournal@gmail.com .
