Beyond Words is an international print magazine of literature and art, founded in 2020.
We pair powerful writing with striking visual art, creating an experience greater than the sum of its parts.
Our global Editorial Board of 11 editors and writers reviews all submissions blindly, ensuring every piece is judged on its own merit.
We welcome poetry, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, short stories, and all forms of inspiring visual art.
Beyond Words Press also publishes themed anthologies of poetry and prose (no visual art in these). Check our Submittable page for current open calls and themes.
We read submissions and send out decisions every day. We promise a one-day turnaround for most of our projects (excluding visual art submissions and 250-word competition submissions).
For further information visit our website, and don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram!
We are now reading submissions for Beyond Words Magazine Issue 73.
We invite poets and writers from around the world to submit their poetry, flash fiction, or creative non-fiction for consideration.
Tired of waiting months to hear back from literary magazines? We believe there's a better way. At Beyond Words, we read submissions year-round and aim to respond within 24 hours. Writers deserve timely decisions.
Founded in 2020, Beyond Words is an international magazine of literature and art. The magazine is stocked in bookstores across the United States and Europe and is featured at major literary events and conferences, including AWP and IndieCon.
Every submission is reviewed anonymously by our international Editorial Board through a blind review process, ensuring that each piece is judged solely on its literary merit.
Submission Guidelines
- Poetry: Up to three poems per submission.
- Prose: One piece per submission, up to 1,000 words.
- We welcome previously published work.
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted.
Rights
If your work is accepted for publication, you grant Beyond Words first publication rights. All rights revert to you immediately after publication. If your work is republished elsewhere, we kindly ask that you acknowledge its first appearance in Beyond Words Magazine.
We look forward to reading your work.
In the meantime, follow us on Instagram at @beyondwordsmagazine and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BeyondWordsMagazine for submission updates, publication news, and upcoming opportunities.
We accept nominations for our 7th Poetry Chapbook Competition!
Our extended Editorial Board, a group of international writers and editors, will review your chapbooks and select the most creative; those which demonstrate multiple poetry techniques; and read as one piece, each poem contributing to the others.
Decision letters will be sent out in December 2026. The winners will get their chapbook published with Beyond Words Press in 2027. We will promote you and your chapbook on our social media channels, and your chapbook will be featured in book fairs and writing conferences.
Guidelines:
Please only include poems or prose-poems.
We will only consider chapbooks up to 30 pages.
It is OK to simultaneously submit your chapbook elsewhere. However, please let us know immediately in case the chapbook gets accepted there.
Good luck!
Past award recipients:
Winners of the inaugural Beyond Words Poetry Chapbook Awards:
Linda Neal Reising - Perpetual Astonishment
Weston Wise - The Songs of the Long Land
Lane Devers - Antarctica is Not the Moon
Winners of the Second Beyond Words Poetry Chapbook Awards:
Hollie Ziskind - So Many Things Flammable
Clayton Spencer - Concerning the Service
Winners of the Third Beyond Words Poetry Chapbook Awards
Von Wise - Grow a Cowboy
James Cook - Around the Lakes
Mar Ka - Near-Presence: An Abecedarian Psalm
Winner of the Fourth Beyond Words Poetry Chapbook Awards
Andrew Christoforakis - But What If No One's Looking Out for Us?
Winner of the Fifth Beyond Words Poetry Chapbook Awards
Jo Matthews - A Stolen Child
We want to showcase your art!
Beyond Words Magazine is looking for visual artists to feature in upcoming issues of our international magazine dedicated to the meeting of art and literature.
We believe that words and images have a unique ability to speak to one another. In every issue, we bring literary and visual works together, presenting them side by side to create unexpected connections, spark new interpretations, and offer readers a richer, more multifaceted experience.
We're open to a wide range of visual art, including photography, paintings, drawings, illustrations, collages, mixed media, and sculpture. Whether your work is bold or subtle, abstract or figurative, experimental or traditional, we'd love to discover it.
You don't need to be an established artist or have previous publication credits. We're interested in distinctive artistic voices, original perspectives, and work that moves us, challenges us, or makes us see something differently.
HOW TO SUBMIT
- Submit up to 10 artworks for our editorial team to consider.
- You may submit work from an existing portfolio; your pieces don't need to have been created specifically for Beyond Words Magazine.
- Selected works will be featured in one of our upcoming issues, alongside literary contributions from writers around the world.
- Our editorial team will review your submission and get back to you with a decision. Please note that our editorial process may take several weeks. Unlike publications that consider visual art independently, we carefully match artworks with accepted poems, stories, and other literary pieces to create meaningful connections between words and images. Finding the right match takes time, so we appreciate your patience while we review your submission.
We look forward to discovering your work!
Follow us on Instagram @beyondwordsmagazine for magazine updates, featured artists, and announcements.
Good luck, and thank you for considering Beyond Words Magazine as a home for your art!