Submission Guidelines

​Submission Guidelines 

by Sacred Chickens 
Staff 

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We’re glad you would like to be part of the Sacred Chickens Writing Community! Do we love to hear ourselves talk? Sure. But one of our goals is to give new and emerging writers (and even old and decrepit writers like Julie and Morty) a place to share their work.  As such we would like to invite you to be part of our conversation.
 
If you have a book review, poetry, prose poetry, or short story you think our readers would like, let us know! We are open to most styles and genres, but we tend to gravitate towards stories that are unsettling, unnerving, or question the status quo. We also tend to appreciate it if you throw in a cat, a witch or a chicken now and again…or all three.  We will even consider opinion pieces that tie in politics and philosophy with literature.
 

Please send your story to: [email protected] with the subject line Submissions for Chickens.
 
Please send the piece as a single spaced .doc attachment.
 
We usually get back to submitters within one to two weeks, unless we have an unusually high volume of submissions.
 
Simultaneous Submissions – you may submit to us even if you’re submitting to someone else. But you have to tell us if your submission is accepted as soon as you figure it out.
 
Length – Here are the lengths we prefer for various types of submissions. However, we’re willing to read pieces that are longer or shorter. We might take your submission even though it’s the wrong length or we might ask you to edit it.
 
Book Review: 1200- 2000
 
Poetry: We can publish anywhere from one to five poems at a time depending on length. If you have five short poems, we can publish them all at once. If you have five very long ones, we might break them up and publish them at different times.  We might like some of your poems and think they are a good fit for us, but not others. If so, we will ask you if we can publish the ones we like.
 
Short stories: We all know that short stories can be…long. But if we like your story, we’ll publish it anyway. A short story can be anywhere from 1,500 to 30,0000 words. We’d prefer them on the shorter end of that. But try us! We read every submission we get.
 
Novellas: We have never received a submission for a novella. Would you like to be the first?
 
Articles and blog pieces: We’ve found these are best between 1800 and 3000 words. We are not opposed to breaking up a longer piece and publishing it in two parts.
 
 
If your piece is accepted – we will tell you when we place it on the editorial calendar and when it goes online
 
Mature content – Mature content is just fine as long as it is central to the piece.
 
Multiple content – You can submit all you want.
 
Flash Fiction – We will consider flash fiction from 500 to 1500 words
 
We hold no copyrights. You can publish any of your work anywhere else you like.
 
If your work is declined, we will send you a note to let you know.
 
We choose artwork that we think fits with the piece. We use art by artists and photographers who are friends of the chickens so there are never any copyright issues.  If you choose to submit art with your piece, it should always be your own and you must be the copyright holder.
 
We do not pay for submissions at this time. We would like that to change in the future and we are actively working on ways to quit losing money. Uncle Morty has ideas. So far none of them have met our ethics guidelines.  I'm sure he will come up with something legal soon.

If we don't accept your submission, it doesn't mean you're not a good writer! It just means that particular piece isn't right for us.  Try us again with another piece or send the piece we declined to someone else.

We will be added a submissions page to the menu with this information so you should be able to find it again later.