Submission Guidelines

About Our Literary Journal

Identity Theory has published original literature—fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, and more—online since 2000.

Based in southern Nevada and featuring an international staff of three dozen editors, our internet-only publication has earned the attention of major print media throughout the world—including the New York Times, Washington Post, and many others—and reaches thousands of influential readers every week.

We nominate our authors for prizes and anthologies. We promote our authors (past and present) on social media. We thoughtfully read every submission. And as one of the longest-running online-only literary journals, we provide a stable, long-term home for our contributors' work.

Quick Literary Submission Links

We welcome poetry, micro, fiction, creative nonfiction, and hybrid work. Poetry and micro are always free to submit by email. Fiction, CNF, and hybrid submissions are available free through Submittable on a first-come basis at the beginning of each month until our monthly cap is reached. After that, you can submit through the tip jar submissions page of Submittable. This recently updated structure keeps the submissions process sustainable for our editorial staff, and we're hoping it will lead to faster response times and clearer lines of communication with our writers. 

For more detailed submission guidelines specific to each section, please visit the following pages:

Contacts

For most queries and submissions, particularly regarding interviews and book coverage, email Matt Borondy at editor@identitytheory.com. More info is available on our contact us page.

What We Publish

Interviews, fiction, poetry, essays, and blogs are the focus of our current publishing efforts, including micro, flash, and mixed-genre work.

Over the past two decades, our journal has published highly regarded long-form interviews with literary authors, indie musicians, filmmakers, and artists.

We have posted fiction from well-known and up-and-coming authors and essays that have been anthologized in the Best American series, among other places.

We also publish book and film reviews, which sometimes appear on places such as Rotten Tomatoes and Powell's Review-a-Day, and we accept social justice pieces and artwork.

How to Get Your Writing Published

Send your submission to the appropriate section through the above section guideline links. If you have questions, query directly to Matt Borondy at editor@identitytheory.com.

More suggestions:

1. Write the type of submission and title in the subject line, e.g., "Micro Submission: 'My Dog is Also A Cat,'" or, "Interview Query: Inventor of No-Spill Coffee Tells All in New Memoir."

2. Feel free to send simultaneous submissions as long as you notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere.

3. Do not send previously published work unless you have a lights-out reason.

4. If you want to send your piece as an attachment, use Word. Optimally, paste the submission in the body of the email and then back it up with an attachment.

5. Include a third-person bio—preferably a brief one, but knock yourself out—along with links and/or social media handles you would like to accompany your work. (We'll most likely follow you if you mention your social names.)

Other Ways to Contribute

We sometimes publish blogs on film, music and literary news and reviews, among other topics. To be considered as a regular or guest blogger, please email Matt Borondy at editor@identitytheory.com regarding your background and the types of subjects you'd like to cover. You may also start your own column.

Or, you can apply to be an editor.

More Submission Policies and Notes

  • We do not officially pay for accepted work. However, we often send gift bags and provide other surprise benefits for our contributors.
  • We nominate our best published pieces annually for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction anthologies.
  • We promote stories (and the work of our contributors) on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, LinkedIn, Substack, and the like. Please join our communities there.
  • We like dogs. Why not include a photo of your dog with your submission? That always helps. (Or, okay, perhaps a cat?)
  • We are here to help your work flourish. You remain free to seek print publication and other outlets for your work after we publish it, but we prefer to be the only publication in which your piece is published online for a reasonable chunk of time after we post it.
  • Please do not send us AI-generated or otherwise plagiarized work.
  • Again, for more info, view our specific guidelines for sending fiction, poetry, micro, and essays/CNF.
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