Submissions

‘The Stinging Fly is an essential part of the thriving ecosystem of Irish literary life. When people ask me how to break into publication I tell them to try there first. It is where the seeds of future writing careers are sown.’—Anne Enright

A massive thank you to everyone who submitted work to us during our November 2024 submission window. All of the work received will be read for our Summer 2025 issue and all writers can expect to hear back from us before the end of March 2025.

We will next be open for submissions between Thursday May 1st and Thursday May 15th 2025. This will be for our Winter 2025-26 issue, which will have a special focus on the climate crisis. A submission call, providing more information on what we will be looking for, will be published here in January 2025.

To keep up to date with all our submissions, workshops, readings, and events, we recommend you join our Newsletter.

What We Publish

During our November 2024 open submission round, we hosted an information session on Zoom for new writers interested in submitting to the magazine. Magazine editor Lisa McInerney and poetry editor Annemarie Ní Churreáin spoke about submissions and the editorial process and answered some commonly asked questions.

You can watch a recording of the session here.
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We publish new, previously unpublished work by Irish and international writers. We have a particular interest in promoting new writers, and in promoting the short story form. Each issue of The Stinging Fly includes a mix of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, alongside our Featured Poets and Comhchealg sections, occasional author interviews and novel extracts. We also welcome submissions of poetry and prose in translation.

We are always excited to read new writers and to hear new voices in literature. Many of the writers we publish have never been published before.

We believe that a proactive approach to diversity and inclusivity is important in redressing imbalances of representation and diversity, both in the pages of our magazine and in the wider cultural landscape. As such, we strongly encourage submissions by writers from underrepresented areas of society.

You can read more about The Stinging Fly and our team on the About Us page.

Guidelines:

  • Work must be previously unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.

  • Only work submitted through our Submittable account will be considered. Submittable is free to use, and there is no fee to submit your work to us.

  • We currently accept submissions in the following four categories: short fiction; novel extracts; non-fiction; poetry. Writers may only submit work to us under one category per submission period. Graphic fiction and non-fiction submissions are welcome.

  • Your work should always be just as long (or as short) as it needs to be. If you are sending us a novel extract, please don’t send us your full novel! Just a chapter or a section or a story-length passage will suffice, so long as it can be enjoyed as a standalone piece.

  • For general poetry submissions, you may send up to 3 poems. Your poems should be submitted together in one single file.

  • Featured Poets: In each issue we publish a number of poems (usually 5 or 6) by a poet who is working seriously towards a first collection. To be considered, you should already have had work published in several other journals and magazines. We welcome poets who have previously had poems appear in The Stinging Fly. Please send 6-8 previously unpublished poems together in a single file. If we want to see more, we will get back to you. If submitting for the Featured Poet slot, there’s no need to make a separate general poetry submission. We will also consider individual poems within your Featured Poet submission for publication.

  • Comhchealg: Is í ‘Comhchealg’ cuid Ghaeilge The Stinging Fly. Cuirtear fáilte roimh phíosaí Gaeilge ó scríbhneoirí úra. Is nós linn aistriúcháin Bhéarla a chur ar fáil i gcás na ndánta a roghnaítear. Chuige sin, déanaimid filí Béarla a chur ag obair ar shaothar a gcomhúdar. Leantar na treoirlínte iarratais thuas a bhaineann le filíocht Bhéarla.

  • All submissions are read. The editors’ decision may not be correct but it is final. We aim to contact everyone within four months of the closing date.

  •  Work accepted for publication in the magazine will also be added to our online archive, which is accessible to magazine subscribers and patrons.

Frequently Asked Questions

Have questions? More information is available in our Submissions FAQ.

And this interview with incoming editor Lisa McInerney focuses a lot on the Stinging Fly’s submissions and editorial processes.

Payment

We pay the following fees for first serial rights. Work published in the magazine is also published on our website as part of our online archive. Copyright remains in all cases with the author.

Fiction and nonfiction: €45 per magazine page, but with a minimum/maximum payment of €325/€1200.
Flash Fiction/shorter essays (1 – 2 pages): €150
Poetry: €45 per magazine page, but with a minimum payment of €70 per poem.
Featured Poet: €425
Cover artwork image: €425

Contributors also receive a copy of the issue in which their work is featured and can order further copies at a discounted rate.

(Updated: March 2024)