General Submission Guidelines
Thin Air Magazine is no longer accepting submissions for our 29th home·land issue. However, we are always accepting submissions for our website–see below for more details!
Our print issue–published annually each spring–will accept submissions until this fall deadline, but our website, Thin Air Online, accepts and publishes work year round.
Please review our general and genre-specific guidelines below:
We only consider unpublished work. Please do not submit material previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, online, or on personal websites (including FB, Twitter, Insta, Flickr, blogs, etc.)
We accept simultaneous submissions. If any part of your submission is selected for publication elsewhere, please notify us immediately using Submittable.
In an effort to encourage submissions from both established and emerging writers with diverse voices, Thin Air reads all submissions blind. Do not include any identifying information within your submission.
For a better idea of our editorial focus, we encourage submitting authors to read past issues of Thin Air. You may purchase a past issue from us for $8 (which includes shipping in the US).
Thin Air does not accept work from anyone affiliated with Northern Arizona University within the last 7 years.
Thin Air in print aims to respond to your submission within 3-5 months. If you submit March-August, know that we likely won’t be able to respond until September when school is back in session. We appreciate your patience! The Thin Air staff is a volunteer-graduate-student-run magazine and we strive to read every submission carefully before making a decision. Thin Air Online accepts submissions on a rolling basis year round and aims to respond to your submission within 3-5 months. Although we have distinct genre editors for our print magazine (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry), our MFA program is multi-genre and interdisciplinary, so we are excited to receive hybrid work in any form. Thin Air Online accepts hybrid work as well.
Formatting Specifications:
Please use Times New Roman, 12pt., double-spaced, 1 inch margins for all submissions except poetry, which should remain single-spaced.
INCLUDE page numbers and a word count at the top of your manuscript. DO
NOT INCLUDE your name/identifiers in your manuscript.
If the unique format of your submission is critical to the piece, please feel free to keep your unique formatting.
Note that we may have to alter format for printing due to physical restraints and requirements. Visual Art and Thin Air Online have their own formatting specifications listed on their submission pages.
Thank you for submitting!
Order the latest issue of Thin Air Magazine released as of March 2023!
Featuring fiction, nonfiction, and poetry of Rishi Agrawal, Logan Anthony, John-Michael Bloomquist, Carl Boon, Michael Chang, Isra Cheema, Anne Cheilek, James Cihlar, Lana Citron, Clayton Clark, Lynn Cohen, Ellis Elliott, Nina Gorskaya, Karin Hedetniemi, Laurie Kutchins, bee lb, Christopher Mccormick, George Peterson, Robert Rothman, Jill Ruscoll, Hannah Saal, Annette Sisson, Carl Swanson, Lior Torenberg, Nicolas Visconti, Evan Morgan Williams and Ellen June Wright.
Also includes pieces by the third-annual winners of the Bird in Your Hands Prize: Kenneth Chacón, Javeria Hasnain and Emily Lupita!
Note: Currently, we can only ship within the United States. If you are shipping outside of the US, the shipping costs increase, and we ask that you please send us a note with your shipping destination and we will be in touch!
Thin Air Online can be found here: thinairmagazine.org
Online Guidelines: Our MFA program is multi-genre and interdisciplinary, and so we are excited to receive hybrid work in any genre.
We accept fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short plays, performance audio, as well as video literature (cinepoetry, video essay, art films, spoken word, etc.), photography, and other visual artwork on an ongoing basis to be featured on our website. WE DO NOT ACCEPT REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, OR EXCERPTS FROM LONGER WORK.
Formatting: We accept batches of 3-5 poems and prose submissions up to 1,500 words. For video or audio submissions, please keep them to five minutes or less. For visual art, we accept up to 5 pieces.
Please include a brief, two-sentence bio (about fifty words) to run with all work, should it be accepted. Feel free to include your social media handles.
For fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or plays, send your submission as a .doc, .docx, or PDF. For video/audio, please send a link to your piece(s) on DropBox or Google Drive. For art/photography, include links to your work on DropBox, your website, Instagram, etc. Fit images to a 1000 x 1000-pixel box and save to medium JPEG quality to keep the file sizes small.
Submission Deadline: Thin Air Online submissions are free and open year-round. Thank you for submitting! DO NOT SUBMIT THE SAME MATERIAL TO THE WEBSITE AS YOU SUBMIT TO THE MAGAZINE. Again, read both guidelines carefully, as each accept different things. Web submissions will only be accepted via Submittable. A team of editors review submissions throughout the year, and we vow to do our best to respond in a timely fashion. Response rate times vary from 1-3 months, depending on the time of year and volume of submissions. We look forward to seeing your work!
Reminders: In addition to these guidelines, please read our General Submission Guidelines. We only consider unpublished work. Please do not submit material previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, online, or on personal websites (including FB, Twitter, Insta, Flickr, blogs, etc.). Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but let us know immediately if a submission has been accepted elsewhere.
Purchase one past issue of Thin Air Magazine. Please specify which issue you would like to purchase:
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2015
2014