Please note that guidelines may change for specific issues or contests to meet the needs of special themes or issues. Payment to artists may also change depending on the funding of the magazine.

This policy is revisited at the start of each fiscal year.

This policy is current as of Fall 2023.

Submission Guidelines:

Eavesdrop is a queer-focused multimedia magazine. Our tone is inclusive, playful, and passionate. 

Eavesdrop accepts any and all genres. Space opera, niche cryptid horror, experimental formats, and anything in between. We love genre fiction, especially when it’s done well. However, please note that we will not accept graphic sexual violence, hate speech, or discriminatory works. If your piece contains violence, deliver it with purpose. We recognize that violence is, unfortunately, part of our queer experiences, and we do not intend to censor anyone’s experience, but Eavesdrop wants to create a safe community for our content consumers and fellow artists. If you have any questions about this policy, please feel free to email us at eavesdroplitmagazine@gmail.com. 

Who Can Submit?

Our mandate is to connect both emerging and established Canadian writers with audiences who care. At this time, we are only accepting submissions from Canadian writers (anyone living in Canada for work, school, asylum, etc, as well as artists living on traditional, unceded territories, is welcome to submit). Certain issues will open to international artists.

We prioritize submissions from BIPOC writers, writers with disabilities, LGBTQ2SIA+ writers, and writers from marginalized groups, but accept submissions from everyone. We also gladly accept submissions from artists we’ve published before, ​​but make a concerted effort to spread the love as much as we can so we can share more voices. Please send us your work, and tell your friends!

What we accept:

Fiction and Plays

We accept short stories and short plays up to 2500 words.

Poetry

We accept up to 5 poems in a submission. Each poem should be no longer than 2 pages.

Creative Non-Fiction

We accept CNC pieces of no more than 2500 words.

Comics

Please submit up to 3 strips or 1 page.

Visual Art

Eavesdrop also accepts visual submissions. Paintings, digital and physical, photo collages, sketches, we want to see it! We are looking for cover art and pieces to put in the magazine.

How to submit:

We strive to make our submissions accessible and meet artists where they’re at. We accept all literary submissions in written form but also in spoken word and short audio plays. Our goal is to transfer all of our written content into audio and all audio into written form so your work can reach every eye, limb, and ear.

Please keep audio/video time under ten minutes if possible. We are a small team and it will help us return responses much quicker.

We have been advised that Submittable is inaccessible to screen readers, so we have decided to host our submissions system entirely in-house. With in-house baking and a tight budget comes a bit of a submission shimmy. Please read the following submission instructions at least once, ideally twice, to ensure we receive your submission!

Eavesdrop accepts submissions via email and website form. Please submit the form on the “Submissions” page and email us your piece at eavesdroplitmagazine@gmail.com with the subject line “(YOUR NAME)” and “(ISSUE NUMBER)” Submission. Alternatively, if you are more comfortable submitting audio through another platform, such as YouTube or Vimeo, or a personal website, please provide us access to a private link.

Written submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. All submissions should be set in a reasonably legible font (please, don’t make us return your piece because chalkduster font is edgy). Also, please send written submissions in DOC or DOCX files (not PDFs, .pages, or other random files that we can’t open on any computer/leave comments easily because that makes us sad). Visual pieces should be scanned at a high quality and saved as high-quality PNG, PDF, or TIF files. Audio files should:

• not have background music (unless there are sounds imperative to the performance/short play). 

• Be submitted as a .wav file, as these are higher quality than a .mp3 file. 

Since we publish within two months of submissions closing, we do not accept simultaneous submissions. Acceptance/rejection letters and initial editorial notes will occur within one month of submissions closing. 

All submissions should be original and previously unpublished. We do not accept any work partially or entirely written by Artificial Intelligence or pieces with computer-generated text or visuals.

The number of artists Eavesdrop accepts will depend on the issue. Eavesdrop aims to accept as many artists as fiscally possible in digital issues. Eavesdrop also intends to print one physical issue a year, in which case the size of the magazine will be taken into consideration based on the available print budget. 

Eavesdrop currently offers three submission periods per fiscal year: November 1st to December 15th,  March 1st to May 15th, and July 1st to September 15th. 

Magazines will be released in February, June, and October. 

Payment:

As stated earlier in the policy, the rate of pay depends on the funding available to Eavesdrop at the time submissions open. Eavesdrop has some operation costs to consider as well as future issues to keep in mind. 

In the fall and winter of 2023/2024 Eavesdrop pays the following:

$30 per poem

$70 per short fiction story, CNF piece, and short play 

$70 per visual art piece

$30 per comic

Eavesdrop currently does not charge a reading fee for regular magazine submissions. Contest submission fees will be based on the cash prize amount, and will not be free of charge. 

Artists will be paid within 30 days of the magazine issue’s launch date or contest winner(s) announcement. Payment will occur via e-transfer to a Canadian bank account (using an artist’s email or phone number) unless the issue or contest is open to artists in other countries, or the artist is located on a traditional, unceded territory that observes foreign banking practices. In these cases, PayPal will be used for payment. 

• Note: Contests will offer cash prizes as well as opportunities for contest submissions to be published in Eavesdrop’s next issue. If contest submissions are accepted in a regular Eavesdrop issue, the same policy guidelines will apply. Contest winners who receive a cash prize will not be paid regular submission prices, but pieces that do not receive a cash prize may receive a standard submission rate. 

Copyright:

When Eavesdrop accepts a piece for publication, it asks for English-language first North American serial rights for use in all print and digital editions of the specific issue in which the piece(s) appear(s), as well as publication on Eavesdrop’s website. Eavesdrop strives to be an accessible platform, which means that we will never put up a paywall so folks can love, share, and enjoy art freely and without barriers. This means entire issues will be available on our website indefinitely. Visual works may be used on the Eavesdrop website, social media, and promotional materials for up to 6 months after publication. Copyright reverts to the artist/author immediately after publication, which means artist work should not appear anywhere else, including personal webpages, until after publication.

If you receive permission to reprint work that originally appeared in Eavesdrop, or if you are an artist whose contribution to Eavesdrop in any way will be appearing elsewhere in print or digital formats, we would very much appreciate that you include in your publication a credit note stating that the piece previously appeared in Eavesdrop Magazine.

Please feel free to contact us with any specific questions you may have about reprinting work from any of our issues.