The Spectacle's Mission Statement:
We welcome and embrace all styles, genres, and modes of writing, but we are particularly interested in vivid, striking imagery and language that lingers with us long after we’ve finished reading. We value relationships between the literary and visual arts, and aim for content that reminds us that our lenses matter—they focus, distort, clarify, and conceal.
Send us your slipstream and irrealism. Send us your eco-fabulism. Send us your villanelles about time travel and your reimagined fairy tales. Send us something new to believe in. Push and break boundaries. Stretch a genre to its extreme. Invent a new genre. Redefine Spectacle.
In short, send us your most alive, your most dynamic, your most pressing art. We would be honored to spend time with it.
Based out of the Creative Writing department at Washington University in St. Louis, The Spectacle is committed to publishing work from under-represented voices, including BIPOC, women, people from LGBTQIA+ communities, and people who have disabilities.
Submission Guidelines for Issues:
Please DO NOT submit to more than one category at a time.
We don't accept previously published work.
Submissions are accepted via Submittable only. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept print manuscripts.
We are happy to take simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, we ask that you withdraw or partially withdraw your submission immediately by adding a note to Submittable.
Please do not email us to withdraw or partially withdraw work.
Please do not submit more than once per reading period.
Authors retain all rights to their work, but The Spectacle requests that you wait three months after publication to republish your work elsewhere (exceptions will be considered). If your work is republished, we ask that you note its initial publication in The Spectacle.
Former issue contributors should wait at least one year after publication before submitting work to subsequent issues of The Spectacle.
For all other queries, contact us at thespectaclemagazine@gmail.com.
Please note that current students of Washington University in St. Louis, or alumni who have graduated as recently as three or fewer years ago, are not eligible for publication in The Spectacle.
THE REVUE Submission Guidelines:
(Please ONLY send us one submission at a time. Do not submit to multiple categories at once.) In the "Title" field provided, indicate to which category you're submitting, and include a brief cover note in the "Cover Letter" field. Only submit one document per submission. If your work is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission immediately via Submittable. If you need to partially withdraw a submission, please do not email us; simply add a note to your submission.
ENCOUNTER: Open to encounters with books, visual art, film, music, theater, dance, clothing, furniture, buildings, etc. Also, reviews of those encounters.
EPHEMERA: Flash fiction. Clusters of mini-stories. Hybrid essays. Notes that don't fall squarely in either the creative or the critical. Strange juxtapositions, historical coincidences, etymologies, recipes, witchery. Get weird with it. Send us the writing you can't find a place for anywhere else. Maybe we'll take it off your hands.
Poetry Submission Guidelines:
Please submit up to 3 previously unpublished poems, totaling up to 8 pages, as one file (doc or docx), and include a brief cover note in the cover letter field. We welcome all genres and approaches. Maybe send us something freaky.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission immediately via Submittable. If you need to withdraw individual poems from a submission, add a note to your submission. (Please do not email us! We won't see it!)
Publication in an issue includes a $50 honorarium.
Please note that current students of Washington University in St. Louis, or alumni who have graduated three or fewer years ago, are not eligible for publication in The Spectacle.
Please note, too, that we do not accept any AI-generated or AI-assisted work.
Submissions close on November 1 or when we've met our cap, whichever comes first.
Nonfiction Submission Guidelines:
We accept memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, flash nonfiction, and other forms of creative nonfiction. All genres and approaches welcome. Maybe send us something freaky.
Please submit your previously unpublished work as a doc or docx file, and include a brief cover note in the cover letter field. We generally publish nonfiction of 5,000 words or fewer. All pieces submitted through our manager should follow this length requirement.
We're happy to accept simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission immediately via Submittable. (Please do not email us! We won't see it!)
Publication in an issue includes a $50 honorarium.
Please note that current students of Washington University in St. Louis, or alumni who have graduated three or fewer years ago, are not eligible for publication in The Spectacle.
Please note, too, that we do not accept any AI-generated or AI-assisted work.
Submissions close on November 1 or when we've met our cap, whichever comes first.
Art Submission Guidelines:
We are seeking visual art to published in Issue #18 of The Spectacle.
Please send us up to five images of your artwork. We welcome all genres and mediums, as long as they're rendered in 2D (i.e. photographs of sculptures). Make sure your attachments are high resolution .jpgs (300-600dpi).
Publication in an issue includes a $50 honorarium.
Please note that current students of Washington University in St. Louis, or alumni who have graduated three or fewer years ago, are not eligible for publication in our journal.
Please note that we do not accept any AI-generated or AI-assisted work. No slop, please!