Vermilion seeks high quality literary fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and art submissions for publication, and we accept year-round. Please note: we only publish work written by members of the Catholic University community. Writers and artists must be current undergraduate or graduate students, faculty, staff, or alumni to be considered for publication.
We publish only original, previously unpublished work. Please read these guidelines carefully and look to the appropriate submissions category for further specifications.
- You may send in submissions for up to three categories for each volume (limits on category submissions are listed below) - if you have more submissions, please reserve the others to submit when we are accepting submissions for the next volume!
- Submissions should be grouped by category, but please submit all of your work in each category as an individual file.
- For example, if you would like to submit 2 poems and 2 short stories: 1) Work should be submitted as a Word/RTF file. 2) Submit your two poems in a single file. 3) Then submit the 2 short stories together in a single file.
- Note: if you are submitting high resolution files of visual art, you can submit each piece individually.
- Each author can submit to each of the categories once, so prep all of your files before submitting.
- We do accept submissions in multiple genres (you may submit, for example, a poem, a story, and a photograph at the same time).
While we make every effort to respond in a timely manner, response for submissions is dependent on the meeting schedule for ENG 220/221. Responses will generally be sent by the middle of the semester, so thank you in advance for your patience!
Please proofread your work carefully before submitting.
Guidelines for Category Submissions:
Poetry- Please submit up to five pages of poems for consideration.
- We welcome free verse and formal poetry, as well as works that are highly experimental in content and form.
- Please submit literary short fiction of up to 4500 words for consideration. Word count may be spread out among multiple submissions.
- Excerpts of longer works, including novellas and novels, are acceptable if the excerpt is also successful as a stand-alone piece and does not exceed the page limit. We welcome work that is highly experimental in content and / or form, though our ability to format published work will be determined by what is possible in Google Sites.
- We accept creative nonfiction on a variety of subjects and in multiple forms. Please submit up to 10 double spaced pages of nonfiction for consideration.
- Excerpts of longer works, including book length memoirs, are acceptable if the excerpt is also successful as a stand-alone piece and does not exceed the page limit, and we welcome work that is highly experimental in content and / or form.
- If submitting work under the creative nonfiction heading, the content should be based on either the author's experiences, the account of someone the author has personally met or on fact that the author has researched. Work that takes an excessive amount of creative license regarding the work's content (excluding literary devices) should be submitted as fiction.
- We are always actively looking for original undergraduate art of various media to be used as cover art and to be featured in our pages. Please submit up to three pieces for consideration and indicate in your cover letter whether you would like your work to be considered for selection as cover art for the volume (selections would need to eventually include the title, volume number, and date). We accept art which considers a variety of subjects and comes in multiple forms. We welcome experimental work.
- Please note: we can only publish images that are available in a high resolution file (at least 300 dpi). If you do not have a high resolution version of your image please do not submit it.
- Please submit up to 20 pages of screenwriting or other dramatic / theatrical writing. We also ask that you include a synopsis of the screenplay in your cover letter and adhere to screenplay formatting. We welcome work that is experimental in content and / or form. Submissions could include: monologues, scenes or excerpts from a play or screenplay, original short films (less than 5 minutes, a link to the video and the screenplay must be submitted).
Please use this form to submit your work.
Questions? Please contact the Vermilion editors at eng-vermilion@cua.edu.