FENCE no. 43, the Spring-Summer 2026 issue, including a poets theater special feature edited by Tony Torn, is published and available!
FENCE no. 44 is forthcoming in Fall-Winter 2026.
FENCE no. 45 is OPEN for submissions. An Open Call for the *Climate & Ecology* special feature, curated by Other Editors Adam Golaski and Sarah Falkner, is posted with details below.
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.***
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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- Work made with a reliance or dependency on "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) will not be published in Fence or in Fence Books.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!
++++++++++
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.
++++++++++
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.
++++++++++
***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.
- Text in originating language is preferred.
- New translations of previously translated work are welcome.
- Poetry: please submit up to three poems and no more than 10 translated pages of poetry.
- All translators working in all languages are welcome to submit their work. We encourage translators living outside of the United States to send in their work.
- One submission per person is desirable.
Please note: Repeat publication by a contributor may take place only after four issues or two years have elapsed.
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.
Please submit up to three short pieces and/or no more than twelve pages of writing per submission. One submission per person is desirable.
Any writing or text that feels outside of the bounds of what is designated by "poetry" or "fiction" should be submitted here. All are welcome.
Please note: the trim size of an issue of Fence is 7"x 9" -- if your piece is page-size specific, be sure to format it to fit on a 7" x 9" Fence page with one inch margins, and provide a PDF.
Please note: Repeat publication by a contributor may take place only after at least four issues or two years have elapsed.
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.
This is the portal for the Fence issue no. 45 Climate & Ecology special feature, edited by Other Editors Sarah Falkner and Adam Golaski.
Find Sarah and Adam's breathing-thinking about the feature below, so that you may think/inhale/exhale along with us, and give yourself radical permission:
Other editor Sarah Falkner writes: “It’s been 30+ degrees Fahrenheit above normal for weeks here in France. While in the South high temperatures are not unknown, my northwestern region is the temperate agricultural and fishing center of France. Now some crops are already failed, and others are combusting in the fields—the farmers can only harvest the ripe wheat at night for risk of equipment sparking a blaze. Fish and marine animals are washing up dead on the shores, wild birds are dropping dead from the sky, and farms are turning into mass burial sites for the (at last count, 5 million) domesticated animals who can't adapt to such an extreme and sudden change. A family of toads somehow made their way through the stone foundation of my house to seek comfort in our bathroom—adorable, but also apocalyptic. Nobody really knows what's going to happen to the forests, besides the ones that are on fire at the moment, but I can tell you that in my garden despite watering at night, many plants and trees have given up the ghost. So, the climate emergency isn't so much of an abstraction for me. It's hard to focus on anything else!”
Other seeks work that engages with, reports back from, & investigates this intersectional ecological moment. We’re keen to see work from artists who resist despair & contemplate ways forward—or who thoughtfully alchemize grief and anger—via action, art, architecture, care work, chemistry, politics, horticulture, culinary arts, housing, industrial design, sociology, beekeeping, history, & et cetera. Reportage / documentation is welcome. As always, we're looking for work that’s hard to categorize, that hybridizes & transgresses; we like visual work, but all categories of poetry should be submitted to poetry—that includes vispo, found poems, erasures, et cetera.
Please submit up to three short pieces and/or no more than twelve pages per submission. One submission per person is desirable.
Please note: the trim size of an issue of Fence is 7"x 9"—if your piece is page-size specific, be sure to format it to fit on a 7" x 9" Fence page with one inch margins, and provide a PDF.
Please note: Repeat publication by a contributor may take place only after at least four issues or two years have elapsed.
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.
Please limit your submission to one story of no more than 8000 words or three flash fictions of up to 1000 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.
Please note: Repeat publication by a contributor may take place only after at least four issues or two years have elapsed.
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.
Please submit up to three poems and no more than ten pages of poetry per submission (one or two more pages is permissible if necessary due to the length of a poem).
Poetry with varying typography is welcome, but please keep in mind that Fence has a 7" x 9" trim size with one-inch margins.
Please note: Repeat publication by a contributor may take place only after at least four issues and/or two years have elapsed.
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.