Lodestone Journal

Lodestone Journal welcomes all secondary and post-secondary authors who love creative writing, who listen for the natural patterns of life and speech, who work hard to attract and keep attention, and who strive to rise above the vulgar and repetitious.

Please carefully read and adhere to these guidelines when submitting to Lodestone Journal.

If you are submitting for the Lodestone Prize for Short Fiction, please submit to the Lodestone Prize for Short Fiction category – submissions through this category WILL NOT be considered for the Prize.

Publication

Your submissions must be original to you and previously unpublished. If you have posted your work on a personal blog or website, you must remove it if it is accepted.

Lodestone owns exclusive rights for six months upon publication, after which copyright returns to you. Lodestone also owns subsidiary rights should we decide to make alternative versions of our issues. If your work is chosen for publication, you will receive a contract to sign and return before your work is published.

We accept simultaneous submissions to other publications, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. We will not be able to publish your piece if it is accepted elsewhere.

We will archive all accepted submissions. These works will be eligible for inclusion in any future print copies, but we cannot guarantee a place in print for everyone.

Content

Lodestone has no genre limitations and our editors generally will accept or reject submissions for reasons of artistic or stylistic quality. However, we are likely to dismiss outright works that are the following: lazy, plagiarized, vulgar, slapdash, pompous, inarticulate, malicious, or dull. Before you submit, please view some of our past issues so that you can gain a sense of the type and quality of works that we are likely to publish. Excessive and unnecessary sexual or violent content should be avoided.

Style

Your work should be double-spaced, with 1” margins and page numbers in the footer. Please ensure that there is no identifying information included on the file.

We ask that any prose submissions stay under 10,000 words, though we may consider longer pieces for serial publication if you indicate that you are willing to do so.

Limit your poems to 150 lines, and please number lines at least every five lines.

Submitting

While you may submit multiple pieces regardless of category, please submit each entry individually. If you submit multiple pieces as one entry, we will reject it and request that you resubmit.

Due to growing submissions, we are not able to guarantee a response time. We do, however, attempt to review and make a final decision on all submissions within three months.

Please complete all fields with your submission. If you have any questions or concerns, you may email us at lodestonesubmissions@gmail.com, with the subject line "Submission Question."

Should your work be accepted, we will discuss any copy edits to your work with you prior to publication online. That said, you are still responsible to proofread and polish your own work. If the quality is poor we will reject it outright. Additionally, we will not accept further revisions after publication.

Expect to hear from our editors within three months of submission. You will have 45 days to resubmit any pieces requiring “revise and resubmit.”