Lighthouse Submission Guidelines

Published by Sam Ruddock on 14th July 202114th July 2021

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Lighthouse is currently closed for Prose, Poetry, and Art submissions.

What kind of work is Lighthouse looking for?

The editorial team will consider all work received. Lighthouse aims to publish innovative contemporary prose, poetry, and art. We encourage you to read our journal to discover the types of work we publish. We regret that due to the volume of submissions received awe are unable to give individual feedback.

Who are we hoping to get submissions from?

Lighthouse is dedicated to promoting and showcasing new writing. Although we expect that many of our contributors will not have many previous publications, in order to retain our focus on writers at an earlier stage of their careers we do not normally print unsolicited submissions from writers with more developed literary careers:

For poets, this means that writers who have not already produced a second full collection of poems with a mainstream literary publisher will be given priority.
For prose writers, this means writers who have not yet published a second novel or collection of short fiction with a mainstream literary publisher will be given priority.
For artwork we are looking for new and emerging artists.
Lighthouse solicits essays and articles for our features section from writers who have passed these milestones in their career or otherwise have a more established audience.

Note that these are not absolutes; we make editorial judgements on a case-by-case basis. If you have already published work with a mainstream press, it might be worth contacting us in advance of your submission so that we can give proper consideration to how your work would fit with our journal.

*Please note, all submitted work must be written by the author. We will not accept any work generated by AI (Artificial Intelligence) or other machine learning means.

Do we accept submissions from outside the UK?

Yes. We welcome submissions in English from new writers anywhere in the world.

However, due to spiralling postal costs, we are now only able to offer gratis PDFs to contributors based outside of the UK. If you would like a hysical copy, you will have to pay the full delivery costs.

Contributors in the UK still receive a physical copy of the issue they are included in.

Prose and Poetry Length and Formatting

Please submit all work in a single document (see below for accepted file types). Please start each poem or flash fiction on a new page. Please send no more than four poems, one piece of short fiction, or two pieces of flash fiction.
For poems, as space is short we will not normally print submissions of more than 60 lines in length.
For short fiction, we are unable to consider stories of more than 2,500 words.

What file types can I submit?

Please submit prose and poetry files in one of the following formats only:

Word document (.doc, .docx)
Text File (.txt)
PDF

Please submit artwork in any of the following formats:

Adobe Illustrator Artwork (.ai – CS4 or lower)
Adobe Photoshop Document (.psd – CS4 or lower)
Encapsulated PostScript (.eps, .epsf, .epsi)
Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg)
Tagged Image File Format (.tif, .tiff)
Portable Document Format (.pdf)
Portable Network Graphics (.png)

Please note that submissions are limited to 10 pieces (one per file), with each file not exceeding a total of 7MB.

Please include all writer contact info on the first page of the submitted file. Please include a fifty word bio.

Does Lighthouse accept previously published material?

No. We cannot consider anything that has been previously published or accepted for publication, anywhere, in any form. Work that has appeared online is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted. We do not consider simultaneous submissions.

Does Lighthouse pay for contributions?

Sadly not. Contributors will get a free copy of the journal in which they appear and will be offered the chance to buy further copies at a reduced contributors’ rate.

When will I hear back?

We try to accept or reject work within three months of receiving it, but please bear with us if it takes a little longer.

When will my work appear?

We try to fit submissions to the issue closest to their submission date/window, however, we may hold submissions for later issues for reasons of space or ‘fit’ with each issue’s theme. If this happens we will contact you and ask your permission.