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Submission Guidelines

Breakwater Review only accepts previously unpublished work and is glad to review simultaneous submissions, but please inform us if your writing is accepted elsewhere.

We publish ONLINE two times per year, in the Spring and Fall. Due to our volume of submissions, we are not able to answer inquiries about the status of your work.

The Peseroff Prize in Poetry

Submissions due May 1, 2023
Prize: $1000 and publication in Issue 33
Fee: $10

The Peseroff Prize honors Joyce Peseroff’s work as a poet, teacher, editor, innovator, and mentor. She helped found the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts Boston, served as its first director, and retired from teaching in 2014.

Submit up to three poems and a $10 entry fee. There are no restrictions on content or form. Poems should be previously unpublished. All entries will be considered for publication. We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify Breakwater if submission is accepted elsewhere.

2023 finalist judge: Jake Skeets

Winner and Finalists will be published in Issue 34.

Please do not submit your work if you are associated with the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston or the Finalist Judge.

Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction

Submissions open year-long
Fee: $3

Please submit your work via our submission manager. Submissions sent via e-mail will not be accepted.

We receive a large number of submissions. Our submission guidelines are set up to facilitate our editorial process. Additionally, we charge a reading fee of $3 for general submissions to help keep Breakwater Review fully operational and to be as accessible to our readers as possible. Please follow the instructions below to enter your submission or your manuscript will be automatically withdrawn:

For poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, please use .pdf, .doc or .docx file formats. Submissions in other formats will not be accepted.
Submit up to 5,000 words of prose or 3 poems per reading period. Please do not exceed the submission limits.
For poems, submit up to 3 poems in a single document with each poem starting on a new page.
If you have multiple short pieces for prose (fiction and creative nonfiction), please include them in one document with the word count for each piece at the top of the respective piece's opening page.

Visual Art

Submissions open year-long
Fee: Free

Breakwater Review is now seeking Visual Art. We are looking for great cover art (and supplemental work) that will be featured as the look of the issue. Send us your best:

Hand-drawn illustration
Painted prints
Photography
Mixed Media
Digital Compositions

You may submit between one and ten images per entry. We typically will not accept more than two to three images per artist. To ensure high-quality viewing, we ask that images be sized so that at least one dimension meets or exceeds 1000px. at 72ppi. Photos should arrive in .jpg or .png format and under 5mb. We may contact you for a higher-quality print if your work is accepted.

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