Our Submissions portal will open from September 1 until September 30, 2024. In 2025, our magazine will feature folios on the following themes:

  • Translation. 
  • Architecture.
  • Lyric Essay.
  • Cinema.
  • Visitation. guest edited by Jennifer Galvão

With VISITATION we are looking for writing which captures an impermanent experience of presence. A visitation might be a knock at the door, a funereal ritual, a brush with the otherworldly, a legal mandate, an act of wrath, a moment of union. Guest edited by Kenyon Review Fellow, Jennifer Galvão, this folio seeks to think about doors, borders, power, incarceration, and other institutions which divide or limit our time.

We invite work that broadly interprets these themes . When you submit, you will have the option to identify your work for general submission or the themes.


We consider previously unpublished:

  • short fiction and essays (up to 7,500 words)
  • essays (up to 3 pieces, up to 5,000 words each; please format and submit as a single document)
  • poetry (up to 6 poems; please format and submit as a single document)
  • excerpts (up to 30 pages double-spaced) from larger works


We strongly encourage submitters to familiarize themselves with work previously published by The Kenyon Review. Subscriptions are available here, and anyone can read up to five free pieces per month in our Archive.


We do not charge a reading fee for general submissions.

  • We consider previously unpublished:
    • short fiction and essays (up to 7,500 words)
    • flash fiction and essays (up to 3 pieces, up to 1,000 words each; please format and submit as a single document)
    • poetry (up to 6 poems; please format and submit as a single document)
    • excerpts (up to 30 pages double-spaced) from larger works
  • We do consider translations in the categories and special folios and themes listed above. Please submit your translated work to its corresponding genre (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or the appropriate theme or folio). 
  • By submitting, you affirm that you hold first-serial English-language publication rights to the work or else that it falls in the public domain.
  • You may submit to more than one genre. However, please submit no more than one submission in a given genre (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama); multiple submissions in the same genre (including multiple submissions with different themes) will be disregarded. 


We are not currently considering the following:

  • unsolicited interviews
  • unsolicited book reviews
  • unsolicited artwork
  • emailed submissions (please use Submittable)
  • previously published material

We consider submissions on Submittable and do not consider paper submissions, except from writers (such as those who are incarcerated) who do not have ready access to the internet. Paper submissions for the current submissions period must be postmarked by the current submission period’s deadline and must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Send hard copies to: SUBMISSIONS, The Kenyon Review, 102 W. Wiggin St., Gambier, OH 43022

Here’s the link to our Submittable portal: https://thekenyonreview.submittable.com/submit

We do not accept revisions to submissions once the submission period is closed. Do not send new drafts unless requested to do so by an editor.

Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but please notify us immediately if the work has been accepted elsewhere.

For prose and drama submissions, please withdraw your piece via Submittable.

For poetry and flash fiction/nonfiction submissions, please use your Submittable account to add a note to your submission listing the titles of works no longer available for consideration.

We cannot consider additional work in the place of withdrawn work.

We read every submission, and because we receive so many submissions per year, response times will vary according to the volume of submissions. We aim to respond to all submissions within six months of receipt. Feel free to query us at kenyonreview@kenyon.edu for an update if after six months of submitting work you do not hear from us. Thank you in advance for your patience.

Authors will receive a contract upon acceptance and payment upon publication. Authors retain copyright to their work published in The Kenyon Review.

Submitting work to The Kenyon Review adds you to our mailing lists. You may unsubscribe from these lists at any time.

Please be sure to add kenyonreview@kenyon.edu to contacts so that you can receive correspondence from us about your submission.

If you are unable to submit because you have not verified your email address with Submittable and have not received a verification notification, we recommend adding  notifications@email.submittable.com to your safe-sender or contact list and attempting email verification again. The Submittable forms require email verification for security purposes. If you continue to experience issues, we recommend you submit a Submittable support request; the support team usually respond quite quickly and can send you your individual verification link directly.

We pay $0.08 per published word of prose (minimum $80, maximum $450) and $0.16 per published word of poetry (minimum $40, maximum $200).

We generally follow the Chicago Manual of Style and Webster’s latest New Collegiate Dictionary.

Thank you for sharing your work with us!


We do consider translations in the categories listed above. Please submit your translated work to its corresponding genre (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama). By submitting, you affirm that you hold first-serial English-language publication rights to the work.


We are not currently considering the following:

  • unsolicited interviews
  • unsolicited book reviews
  • unsolicited artwork
  • emailed submissions (please use submittable.com)
  • previously published material


We consider submissions on Submittable and do not consider paper submissions, except from writers (such as those who are incarcerated) who do not have ready access to the internet. Paper submissions for the current submissions period must be postmarked by the current submission period’s deadline and must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Send hard copies to: SUBMISSIONS, The Kenyon Review, 102 W. Wiggin St., Gambier, OH 43022


We do not accept revisions to submissions once the submission period is closed. Do not send new drafts unless requested to do so by an editor.


We allow simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately if the work has been accepted elsewhere. 


For prose and drama submissions accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your piece via Submittable.


For poetry and flash fiction/nonfiction submissions accepted elsewhere, please use your submittable.com account to add a note to your submission listing the titles of works no longer available for consideration.


We cannot consider additional work in the place of withdrawn work.


We read every submission, and because we receive so many submissions per year, response times will vary according to the volume of submissions. We aim to respond to all submissions within six months of receipt. Feel free to query us at kenyonreview@kenyon.edu for an update if after six months of submitting work you do not hear from us. Thank you in advance for your patience.


Authors will receive a contract upon acceptance and payment upon publication. Authors retain copyright to their work published in The Kenyon Review.


Submitting work to The Kenyon Review adds you to our mailing lists. You may unsubscribe from these lists at any time.


Please be sure to add kenyonreview@kenyon.edu to contacts so that you can receive correspondence from us about your submission.


We generally follow the Chicago Manual of Style and Webster’s latest New Collegiate Dictionary.


If you are unable to submit because you have not verified your email address with Submittable and have not received a verification notification, we recommend adding notifications@email.submittable.com to your safe-sender or contact list and attempting email verification again. The Submittable forms require email verification for security purposes. If you continue to experience issues, we recommend you submit a Submittable support request; the support team usually respond quite quickly and can send you your individual verification link directly.

Thank you for sharing your work with us!



$24.00

Submissions for the Kenyon Review Fiction Contest are accepted electronically every year from January 1 through January 31.

The Kenyon Review publishes the winning story in print, and the author is awarded a full scholarship to attend the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops.

  • Submit via our Submittable portal. We cannot accept paper submissions. 
  • Writers must not have published a book of fiction at the time of submission. (We define a “published book of fiction” as a novel, novella, short story collection, or other fiction collection written by you and published by someone other than you in print, on the web, or in ebook format.)
  • Submissions must be no more than 4,000 words in length.
  • Please submit no more than once per year. 
  • Please do not simultaneously submit your contest entry to another magazine or contest. 
  • Please do not submit work that has been previously published.
  • Before you submit, please remove your name and any other identifying information from your manuscript.
  • The Submittable portal will remain active between January 1 and 31, 2025. 
  • The entry fee for the Short Fiction Contest is just $24, collected at the time of submission. All entrants are invited to claim a complimentary half-year Print plus Digital subscription to The Kenyon Review (for domestic addresses) or a half-year Digital-only subscription (for international addresses) through February 15, 2024. Your new half-year subscription toThe Kenyon Review will include the Spring 2024 and Summer 2024 issues. Current subscribers will receive a two-issue extension on their current subscription. As always, we will open in the fall for regular submissions, which we read at no cost to writers.

Winners will be announced in the late spring. You will receive an email notifying you of any decisions regarding your work.

Thanks for your interest in The Kenyon Review!

The Kenyon Review