B O D Y is an international online literary journal. We publish the highest quality poetry and prose from emerging and established writers. We also showcase contemporary artworks through our interviews with artists. B O D Y publishes three issues per year on a rolling basis: Winter; Spring; and Fall.

Submissions for our 2027 Scottish Poetry issue, edited by Christopher Crawford, are now open.

We are looking for poems in English, Gaelic, and Scots from poets born in Scotland and poets currently living in Scotland.

General Guidelines

• B O D Y accepts around 1.5% of work we receive, so please send us your very best.
• Please only ever submit your work through Submittable. Email submissions will not be considered. Do not submit your work via social media.
• Please read our general guidelines and submission categories below before submitting.
• Please include a short cover letter with your full name and brief literary bio statement. We prefer short, factual bios. Please don’t send us your entire literary CV.
• Include your last name, genre, and number of pieces submitted in the title of your submission and your submission file – for example: Jane Doe, 5 poems
• We accept simultaneous submissions.  If you need to withdraw a part of your submission due to an acceptance elsewhere, please send us a note via Submittable to let us know.
• We respond quickly, typically within a few weeks. If you don’t hear from us for a month, it means we’re seriously considering your work.
• Please do not submit previously published work. We won’t publish work that has already appeared elsewhere in English. This includes other magazines, your blog, or on social media. Translations of work already published in another language will be considered.
• Due to the volume of submissions we receive, please don’t submit more than once or in more than one category per reading period. Please do not re-submit work we’ve already considered and declined.
• Our submissions are capped. Once the cap has been reached, submissions will be closed and the submission form will no longer be available.
• Please check the category guidelines below for additional submission instructions.

Submission Categories

Poetry

For our Scottish Poetry issue, we are looking for poems in English, Gaelic, and Scots.

• Please submit your work on ONE document.

• Submit 3 to 6 poems, up to a total of 10 pages of poetry

• Each poem should start a new page

  Note on translations: Word and page limits apply only to the translated works (e.g. 3-6 translated poems, plus the originals)

• Rights

  
  B O D Y retains first electronic rights to all published work. All rights return to the author upon publication in B O D Y, however, we appreciate a standard acknowledgement should the work first appearing in B O D Y be later republished at another venue. B O D Y retains the right to archive the work on our website. Please direct queries via email to editor@bodyliterature.com

SUBMISSION TERMS

By submitting to B O D Y, you confirm that you have the authority to provide the content you are submitting to B O D Y; the content is original to you and represents your own work or a translation done by you; you hold translation rights for any translated work you are submitting and indemnify B O D Y against any infringement of those rights; the work you are submitting does not plagiarize any other work and does not infringe copyright, trademark, intellectual property rights, or moral rights of anyone else; the work you’re submitting is not defamatory and does not violate the personal or privacy rights of person or entity. If your submission is accepted for publication, you agree to grant B O D Y a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use your submission in all formats and media published or distributed by B O D Y; and you confirm that you have read and agree to our Privacy Policy. You further acknowledge and agree that B O D Y routinely develops ideas and receives submissions from other parties, and you, therefore, renounce any claim that B O D Y misappropriated any ideas or portions of your content in future B O D Y issues, publications, or content.