Submissions

Whale Review publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, criticism, interviews, English translations of these genres, and other forms of creative writing. We particularly value inventive writing, regional voices, and personal experiences. We encourage contributors to explore our website before submitting, to become familiar with the writing we publish and help them decide whether their work might be a good fit.

Submissions are open year-round, with no deadline. Please send no more than 10 poems or 5,000 words for other written works at a time, along with a short author biography, to xifish.studio@gmail.com. We accept Word attachments or submissions in the body of an email.

We usually respond within two weeks. If you have not received an acceptance within that period, please feel free to submit your work elsewhere. If we do not accept your work, this is not necessarily a reflection of its quality. Often, it simply means the piece is not the right fit for the journal at this time.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere. Previously published work is also welcome, provided it has not been published or republished within the past year.

Rights: Authors retain full copyright. Whale Review requests non-exclusive rights to publish and archive accepted work on our website, and to use excerpts from it for promotional purposes, both online and in print. Authors may republish their work elsewhere, and we kindly ask that they acknowledge its previous publication in Whale Review.

Editorial responsibility: Authors are responsible for the content of their work, including but not limited to its accuracy, originality, and necessary permissions. Our editorial review and selection focus primarily on literary merit and suitability for the journal.

Whale Review is independently run by writers Fish Lu and Xi Nan. We charge no submission fees and are currently unable to offer payment for published work.

We look forward to reading your work!