Criteria for Submissions



Threewaxbirds Press believes that writing and art should be published based on its artistic merit. All submissions are evaluated according to the following criteria:

1). Artistic merit: sense of voice, use of medium, talent, relevance, poignancy, memorableness, and its ability to make us weep quietly or question the foundations of our own existence.

2). Content: We like pieces about (crazy) people. We like writing that is understated, memorable, poignant, and quirky. We don't like funny writing. Unless you are funny in the way that we are funny, which usually involves historical and pop. culture references. Or, pointing out that you are just more funny than everyone else. Joey Comeau is pretty funny, though. Not many other people are.

3). Length: Submissions for a literary magazine should be limited to two pages, however, we will consider publishing exceptional longer work. Unless we're sleepy. Then most bets are off.

4). Genres: We're pretty lenient about genres. We like prose; we like poetry. We like grocery lists; we like letters. We like​ drawings from first​ grade​ or drawings from last week. We like colla​ges. We like​ secre​ts commi​tted to paper​. We like​ haiku. We try really hard to like essays, but we usually don't. Unless they're about conspiracy theories in the art world, family and hierarchical structures of elephant herds, or teenangers overcoming adversity through dance and music.

5). Editors' mood:All submissions are evaluated based on our willingness and motivation to read your work. If you forget to attach your submissions, send them in a complicated format, or misspell "threewaxbirds," we will probably be grumpy and less likely to accept your work. We really hate it when you just paste your work into an e-mail. It messes up the formatting and then we have to paste it into a word document and recreate all of your line breaks and indents. It makes Ryan really cranky. And hate your one word lines.

6). Nepotism: We can't help it. If we know you, we probably like you and your art.

For our literary magazines, as a staff, we discuss every piece for its relative strengths and short-comings in order to reach a decision about its inclusion. Every submission will be discussed by at least two editors. As copyright is concerned, we accept work that is being simultaneously submitted elsewhere, and all rights revert to the authors and artists following publication. Although we try to provide a diverse group of authors and voices, we do allow a single author to publish more than once within a single literary magazine. An author may only publish two pieces within a single genre per publication, however, exceptional work will be considered for future editions per permission of the author.