Fence no. 45 is OPEN for submissions in Translations.
Fence no. 45 CLOSED for submissions on September 30, 2026 for poetry, fiction, climate & ecology, and other. The editors do not accept submissions after the deadline.
Fence no. 44 is forthcoming in Fall-Winter 2026.
Fence no. 43, the Spring-Summer 2026 issue, including a poets theater special feature edited by Tony Torn, is published and available!
The Ottoline Prize in Poetry is CLOSED for submissions, and will re-open in spring 2027
The Fence Modern Poets Series Prize is CLOSED for submissions, and will re-open in spring 2027.
The editors do not read work sent outside of official submission periods.
***PLEASE SIGN UP FOR THE FENCE NEWSLETTER TO FIND OUT ABOUT UPCOMING SUBMISSION PERIODS, HERE.***
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Fence is published in print approximately one to two times per year.
We ask for your support through a reading fee in order to ensure Fence will have the required funds on hand to pay the our printer in Illinois and our distributor who prepares the magazine for shipment to bookstores, libraries, and your mailboxes.
Response time is between three and nine months.
Every submission that we receive, including yours, no matter how many arrive, will be closely read by one of our senior editors. After that initial round of reading, a small number of submissions are advanced to the next round of decision making, so that the editors as a group can discuss them and then select which will appear in the print issue and/or on the Fence website.
- Please Note: Repeat publication by a contributor within the same field (poetry, fiction, translation, other) may take place only after at least four issues or two years have elapsed. The editors do not make exceptions.
- Contributors with work selected for print publication will be compensated at $50 and a two-issue subscription to Fence.
- Work made with a reliance or dependency on "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) will not be published in Fence or in Fence Books.
We thank you for respecting our editorial guidelines, and we look forward to considering your art!
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Poetry: Please submit up to three poems and no more than ten pages of poetry per submission. You may submit as many times as you would like.
See PEOPLE for the list of Poetry Editors.
Fiction: Please limit your submission to one story of no more than 8,000 words or three flash fictions of up to 1,000 words each. Submissions containing more than one story or three flash fictions will not be read. Individuals are limited to one submission per submission period.
See PEOPLE for the list of Fiction Editors.
Translation: Cole Swensen is Translation Editor, focusing on poetry.
Text in originating language is preferred.
New translations of previously translated poems are welcome.
The above genre-specific page maximum and limits apply just the same for translation.
Other: This category allows submitters to self-define by choosing not to define their genre. Other is appropriate for work that is hybrid or otherwise not interested in saying what it is. Submit up to twelve pages of Other.
See PEOPLE for the list of Other Editors.
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We hope that you will become, if you are not already, an active part of Fence not only through submitting your writing but also as an active, sustaining subscriber. We encourage you to read through issues of Fence. In turn, we will maintain an open and energetic space for the publication of new literary art, and we will continue to connect to an ever-expanding audience through innovative design, distribution, and publicity.
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***OUR MISSION***
Fence maintains a venue, in print, aural, and digital forms, for writing that speaks across genre, sociocultural niche and ideological boundary as accessibly as it can, such that Fence publishes largely from its unsolicited submissions and is committed to the literature and art of queer writers and writers of color.
Fence encourages collective appreciation of variousness by inhering collectively outside of the constraints of opinion, trend, and market.
The name of the magazine comes from a John Ashbery poem, "Soonest Mended."
The Translations Editor of Fence is Cole Swensen.
For the next couple of issues, we’ll be using a very elastic definition of translation; in addition to translation as traditionally understood, we’ll be accepting fanciful translations, self-translations, macaronic translations, and other variations that we’ve never even thought of. If your translation varies from the traditional, please just briefly state how.
We’re also, and always, interested in translations from languages that have not yet been or have rarely been represented in our pages.
And please, please do not submit a translation until you have fully cleared the rights and have permission in writing to publish your translation without restrictions.
Other notes:
- Please also include the text in the initial language, if possible.
- New translations of previously translated work are welcome.
- Please submit up to three poems and no more than 10 pages of translated poetry. In order to present as many voices and languages as possible, we rarely publish works longer than one or two pages.
- Please send only one submission.
Contributors with work selected for print publication will be compensated at $50 and a two-issue subscription to Fence.
As Fence is small fully independent non-profit publication, unaffiliated with any institution providing financial security, we depend on writers and readers like you. To subscribe: https://fenceportal.org/subscribe/. To become a Fence Member at a level you choose: https://fenceportal.org/support/. To Donate: make a tax-deductible financial contribution to our ongoing efforts.