General Submission Guidelines  

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All work MUST be submitted as an editable document (.docx or .doc) if it is written OR a high-resolution image (.jpg or .tif) if it is a photo. Submit to earwormsmag@gmail.com. You also MUST include your name, genre, and the title of your piece in the subject line! However, your name should not be on the piece itself. In the body of your email, include a short, third-person bio (aim for under 75 words) and which earworm helped inspire your piece.

 

Third-person bio guidelines: We would prefer that your bios include your name, your pronouns, and your social media handles or wherever it is that readers can find more of your work at the very least​! The general format is as follows:

Name (pronouns) is a writer who does writing and likes stuff. You can find them on social media site under the handle @socialmedia or in another publication. ​

 

Make sure to include trigger warnings for sensitive content. In the event that you are accepted to earworms magazine, we will put these trigger warnings at the top of your piece. 

 

Please consult our House Style Guide [link to come] for specifications on how we would like to receive your work, but generally, all prose should be double-spaced and all poetry should be single-spaced! We will copy-edit work for grammar and spelling, but we will not make content edits. 

 

Simultaneous submissions are totally expected and welcomed, but please let us know if at any point during the review process your work has been accepted elsewhere so that we can be aware. 

 

If you are accepted, please know that all rights will go back to you as the author, but if you (hopefully) republish elsewhere, we appreciate being credited as a place in which your work resides.  

 

Absolutely no AI or AI-enhanced work will be accepted. Everything using AI in any way, shape, or form will receive both a warning and a rejection. If you try to submit with AI or AI-enhanced work after receiving a warning, you will be blacklisted. 

 

We do NOT accept: sexual fantasies, violent fantasies, (etc).

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We do NOT accept previously published work. 

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We do NOT accept work that has nothing to do with music. 

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Please give us 2-3 months to read your work and get you a response. If you do not receive a response within this window, feel free to inquire about our progress by emailing earwormsmag@gmail.com. 

 

Genre Specific Submission Guidelines

 

Fiction should be kept to 2,000 words, but please try to aim for around 1,000 at minimum.

 

Poetry can be, at maximum, 40 lines in total. You may submit up to three poems at a time! Please send as a .docx or .doc, but if you have particular formatting wishes, also send an accompanying .pdf. 

 

Creative Non-Fiction pieces, like fiction, can be 2,000 words (at max!), but sometimes it’s possible to be effective with fewer than 2,000 words. We are looking (non)specifically for lyric essays, which are (more specifically) braided, segmented, or hermit crab essays.  

 

Flash should be under 1,000 words but you may submit three pieces! Or two! Or one! But not four! Or anything more than four! 

 

Experimental works can be between 100 and 2,000 words! It can be hard to define “experimental,” so please consult our dedicated page of Stuff We Like to get a better idea of what it is we’re looking for.

 

Photography is welcome! You may send us up to 3 of your photos in the highest quality possible!

 

MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE TITLES FOR EACH PIECE/PHOTO YOU SUBMIT!!! We will make up titles if you do not include them. We may not always be charitable about it.

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