Thank you for your interest in submitting to Lit Shark Magazine!
We’re grateful for the opportunity to read so many great works, beautifully rendered ideas, and excellent executions of genre. But most importantly, we love reminding each other that we don’t have to live these things alone: our thoughts, our experiences, or our art.
To Submit to Lit Shark Magazine:
Thank you for submitting to Lit Shark! To submit, please email publishing@litshark.com.
The subject line of your email should be, “[Issue #] Lit Shark Sub,” so we can match your submission up with the proper theme. Include your name, contact info, and author bio in the body of the email.
If the submission is a reprint, that must be stated in the body of the email, along with the information about the earlier printing(s).
Your submission should appear in ONE document, and it should not include your name or other identifying information, so we can ensure a fair, unbiased reading of your work. We prefer PDF or Word Docx.
Poetry: Up to 5 poems or 10 pages
Fiction, Short Nonfiction, and Novel Excerpts: Up to 15 pages or 4500 words
Plays: 10-minute plays or up to 10 pages
General submissions are ALWAYS welcome, but some of our issues are themed, so please be mindful of what our themes are for the year, so you can submit your work to the most fitting issue possible.
Reprints are acceptable, but please include the previous publication information in your submission email.
Simultaneous submissions are always welcome, but please let us know as soon as a piece is accepted elsewhere so we can take it out of consideration. Replying to your initial submission email would be the easiest for us!
Lit Shark’s Submission Schedule:
Submissions are considered on a rolling basis at Lit Shark; our doors are always open. Submissions are also always free! We’re publishing FOUR issues this year, PLUS a Best Of 2025-2026 Anthology and our PAID Poem of the Month Contest.
That said, if there is a particular issue you’d like your work to appear in, or a specific contest you want to submit to, here is our 2026 timeline:
You also can submit your work EARLY (i.e., if you had something ready for our Spooky issue right now); just make sure to note in your submission WHICH issue you’re applying for so we can properly consider it!
Issue 10 of Lit Shark Magazine: The Winter Edition
Submissions Due: March 1st
Our first issue of the year is always our “general” issue in the sense that anything goes, and all will be considered. Priority is, of course, always given to marine- and nature-themed works, but all works are still considered. Just keep the graphic, sexual, and violent themes to the lighter side, given our overall audience.
Issue 10 of Lit Shark Magazine: The Winter Edition will appear at the end of March 2026.
Issue 11 of Lit Shark Magazine: The SHARK DOG Edition
Submissions Due: May 1st
If you’ve been with us for a little while, you may remember Issue 6 of Lit Shark Magazine: The SHARK DOG Edition in August 2024, which was to honor those impacted by the XL Bully Ban in the UK and Wales. It grew into this incredible, heartfelt, vulnerable, raw, and deeply emotional issue, not just about the ban, but about those who feel misunderstood, misrepresented, and villainized, from underrepresented communities to the smallest of spiders. It remains one of my favorite issues, and I’m excited to bring it back this year. We’re still open, of course, to those impacted (in an ongoing sense) to the XL Bully Ban, and we will donate to those causes like we did for Issue 6, and we also want those who feel misrepresented to submit, as well. Nonfiction, stories, poetry, and photography that represent XL Bullies and other challenged breeds, similarly villainized animals like sharks and hyenas, spiders and bats, humans who feel less than seen and cared for, banned books for the pettiest of reasons, we want it all.
Issue 11 of Lit Shark Magazine: The SHARK DOG Edition will appear at the end of May 2026.
Issue 12 of Lit Shark Magazine: The SHARK WEEK Edition
Submissions Due: July 1st
The theme for this issue: nature, marine life, and reactions to SHARK WEEK, SHARKFEST, and other similar documentaries (you can respond to documentaries and programs from ANY year; you’re not restricted to only this year’s programs!). Poetry responses, fiction inspired by fun facts, essays written based on newfound interests, etc. Put your spin on it, but make it fishy and sharktastic!
Issue 12 of Lit Shark Magazine: The SHARK WEEK Edition will appear at the end of July 2026.
Issue 13 of Lit Shark Magazine: The Spooky (TEETH) Edition
Submissions Due: October 1st
Spooky poems and chilling stories, dark retellings, campy horror and ghost stories, and shark tales that would make JAWS or THE MEG tremble. Send us your creepiest, coolest, and campiest! And since this Spooky edition will be our THIRTEENTH ISSUE EVER, bring us your best (worst?!), scariest, campiest, ridiculous! We’re so excited for this one. Our EIC may or may not be writing something in the vein of Goosebumps, but with sharks, just for this occasion.
Issue 13 of Lit Shark Magazine: The Spooky (TEETH) Edition will appear on Halloween 2026.