Isotope Writers’ Guidelines
We are interested in lyric and short narrative essays, short stories, microfiction, prose poems, poetry, and artwork that engages in and meditates on the varied complex relationship among the human and non-human worlds, with a special interest in moving beyond merely laudatory descriptions of natural beauty and elegies on loss of the same.
We are interested in “the beauty of things”—to use Robinson Jeffers’s phrase—but seek to complicate typical modes of nature writing with a wide range of emotion and subject.
We are especially interested in work engaging fields, subjects and concerns that move beyond traditional nature writing—including urban ecosystems, astronomy, physics, chaos theory, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, restoration ecology, earth sciences, cartography, sexuality, medicine and the body.
We accept submissions from July 1 to October 15. We ask that poetry submissions be limited to 1-5 poems, totaling not more than 10 pages. Please submit no more than 20 pages of double-spaced prose (fiction or nonfiction), in a standard font with 1-inch margins. For all submissions, include contact information, a bio and enclose a SASE for reply. Please let us know how you heard about Isotope. Response time varies with staff size and budget. Manuscripts will not be returned; those not accepted will be recycled. Simultaneous submissions are okay, so long as they are identified as such and we are notified immediately if work is taken elsewhere. We do not accept submissions of previously published material.
Pay Scale: $50 per poem, $100 per prose piece
Send submissions to:
Isotope
Department of English
Utah State University
3200 Old Main Hill
Logan, Utah 84322-3200
