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We consider previously unpublished: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  • We consider previously unpublished: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

We will be accepting poetry manuscripts between November 1 and November 30, 2024. 

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

(Note: If you are a high school student in your sophomore or junior year, please submit to the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers.)

  • Submit via our Submittable portal. We cannot accept paper submissions. 
  • Writers must not have published a book of poetry at the time of submission. (We define a “published book of poetry” as a full-length poetry book, poetry chapbook, or other poetry collection written by you and published by someone other than you in print, on the web, or in ebook format.)
  • Please submit 3-5 poems, no longer than ten pages.
  • 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 November 1 and 30, 2024. 
  • The entry fee for the Poetry 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 December 15, 2024. Your new half-year subscription to The Kenyon Review will include the Spring 2025 and Summer 2025 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.

The final judge of this year’s contest is Diane Seuss. Diane Seuss was born in Indiana and raised in Michigan. Seuss is the author of the poetry collections Modern Poetry (2024), Frank: Sonnets (2021), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (2018); Four-Legged Girl (2015), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open (2010), winner of the 2009 Juniper Prize for Poetry; and It Blows You Hollow (1998). Her work has appeared in Poetry, the Georgia Review, Brevity, Able Muse, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and the Missouri Review, as well as The Best American Poetry 2014. She was the MacLean Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of English at Colorado College in 2012, and she has taught at Kalamazoo College since 1988. Seuss earned a BA from Kalamazoo College and an MSW from Western Michigan University. 

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 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, created in 2007 to recognize outstanding young poets, is an annual contest for poets who are sophomores and juniors in high school. The contest is named in honor of Patricia Grodd in recognition of her generous support of The Kenyon Review and its programs, as well as her passionate commitment to education and deep love for poetry.

The poems by the winner and runners-up will be published in The Kenyon Review, and the winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop. Submissions for the contest are open every year November 1 through November 30. 

  • To submit your poem: fill out the fields below, attach your file, and click the "submit here" button. 
  • Please submit only one poem to the contest. Only unpublished work will be considered for the prize. Please do not simultaneously submit your contest entry to another magazine or contest. 
  • You must be a high school sophomore or junior to enter.
  • Make sure your file is one of the following formats: PDF, Word document (.doc or .docx), Rich Text Format (.rtf), Microsoft Wordpad and Notepad, Apple TextEdit (.txt).
  • We charge no entry fee. It is free to enter. 
  • Submit between November 1 and November 30, 2024.

The final judge of this year’s contest is acclaimed poet Cate Marvin. Cate Marvin’s first book, World’s Tallest Disaster, was chosen by Robert Pinsky for the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize and published by Sarabande Books in 2001. In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. She co-edited with poet Michael Dumanis the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books, 2006). Her second book of poems, Fragment of the Head of a Queen, for which she received a Whiting Award, was published by Sarabande in 2007. Her third book of poems, Oracle, published by W.W. Norton & Co., was named by The New York Times as one of “The Best Poetry Books of 2015.” Marvin teaches poetry writing in the Stonecoast M.F.A. Program at the University of Southern Maine and is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. A recent Guggenheim Fellow, she lives in Scarborough, Maine. Event Horizon, her fourth collection, appeared from Copper Canyon Press in 2022.

Winners will be announced in early February 2025 via email, on The Kenyon Review website, and in the February Kenyon Review newsletter. 

Thanks for your interest in The Kenyon Review.

$18.00

The Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship for Emerging Writers is designed to nurture and develop new voices in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The fellowship will provide support for emerging writers who demonstrate exceptional talent, promise, and commitment to their chosen craft. Participation in the program involves one-on-one mentorship by an experienced editor on the KR team over a period of four months. Fellows can expect to have monthly hour-long conversations with a Developmental Editor, who will provide feedback and suggestions on a book draft. 

Eligibility

  • Applicants must be twenty-one years of age or older.
  • This fellowship opportunity is open to any writer who is not currently enrolled in a degree-granting creative writing program.
  • Applicants should not have published a full-length literary book with a major publisher, university press, or other established press, or be under contract for a book. Published work in literary magazines or journals is acceptable.
  • Writers from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in the publishing industry are especially encouraged to apply.

Application

  • Submit between November 1 and December 15, 2024
  • Include…
  1. a project description (max 500 words). Please note any challenges or particular areas of concern within the work.
  2. a poetry or prose writing sample of the project. The writing sample should be 10–15 pages (double spaced for fiction and nonfiction).
  3. a recent copy of your CV.
  • The application fee is $18. If this fee poses a hardship, please contact us at kenyonreview@kenyon.edu. 
  • All fee-paying applicants are invited to claim a complimentary half-year Print plus Digital subscription toThe Kenyon Review (for domestic addresses) or a half-year digital subscription (for international addresses) through November 15, 2023.

Selection Process

Our Developmental Editors (members of the KR editorial team) will review the applications and select the Fellows they will work with. They will reach out to the Fellow and arrange for an initial conversation by phone or Zoom. Fellows and Developmental Editors will collaborate on a work plan, establish goals, and determine deadlines and a schedule for monthly hour-long conversations. Over the course of four months, they will meet by phone or Zoom to discuss the progress of the writing project. Winners will be announced in early 2025. 

The Kenyon Review