SUBMISSIONS

Propel Magazine accepts submissions from poets based in the UK or Ireland who have yet to publish their first full-length poetry collection. We accept submissions six times a year, during one month submission windows for each Issue.

**Submissions are now closed for Propel Issue Eleven (May 2024) Edited by Ian McMillan. Our next submission window will be open from 1–31 May 2024**

Subscribe to our mailing list to be notified when our submissions windows are open.

All submissions made will be read and considered by that issue’s Editor. We are unable to offer individual feedback on submissions. We will respond to submissions within six weeks of the end of the submission period. 

• Please submit your work via our Submittable page. 

• We do consider simultaneous submissions, but please let us know promptly if work you have submitted has been accepted for publication elsewhere. 

• We can accept a maximum of six poems, in a single document, to be considered for an issue.

• Poems must be unpublished online or in print.

• You can send one submission per submission window. If your work is accepted for an issue, please do not submit again for 12 months.  

• Please note, we only accept and publish work from poets based in the UK and Ireland.

For increased accessibility, if your work is accepted, we will request an audio recording of you reading the poem, to make available alongside the poem. We can provide you with technical assistance to do this if you require it, and can resolve any issues if/when your work is accepted.
If a piece of visual poetry is accepted we may ask you to work with us on providing accessibility text to accompany it (see further FAQs below). If your work is accepted, all copyright remains with you as the author, however we retain the right to publish your submission in any subsequent digital & print issues or anthologies.

As submissions will be reviewed by the Editor for each issue, we are unable to accept postal submissions at this time. If you are unable to access Submittable, please email Patricia on info@propelmagazine.co.uk and she will be happy to help.

  • Yes.

  • Yes.

  • No. Propel Magazine is for writers who have not previously published a full collection.

  • No. Poets under contract , as at the date of submission, with a publisher for a full collection are not eligible to submit.

  • No. We consider poems previously posted on social media and/or blogs to be previously published and would therefore ask that you send us poems that you haven’t posted online.

  • Yes. Submissions for each issue will be reviewed by the Editor for that issue. If you submitted to a previous submission window and your poems were not accepted you are very welcome to submit in subsequent submission periods. If your work has been accepted we request that you don’t submit again for 12 months.

  • We offer an honorarium of £20 to each contributor.

  • Due to the nature of our funding, this programme is aimed to support writers based in the UK and Ireland. We are therefore not able to accept submissions from writers based overseas.

  • We are not currently publishing translations. We do however welcome submissions of your own dual-/multiple- language work, bearing in mind that the poems will be targeted at an English-speaking readership.

  • Yes. If you submit visual poetry and are selected for an issue we may ask you to work with us on providing accessibility text to accompany your piece.

  • Accessibility text is a written description of an image. It's a way of making visual content accessible to people who are blind, have low vision, or who have cognitive disabilities which make it harder to process the content. In the case of visual and concrete poetry, a visual description can provide a way into the visual elements of the poetry. There are many approaches to writing accessibility text for visual poetry, but the basic principle is to provide a clear description of what is happening in the image, balancing concision with providing a full picture. The guiding principle is, "What does someone reading or hearing this text need in order to appreciate the poem fully?" Writing accessiblity text can itself be poetic: alt-text-as-poetry.net is a useful resource for poets and writers using accessibility text. Here are a few guidelines:

    - If a poem contains manipulated or distorted text, accessibility text should provide a plaintext version alongside a description of the way the text has been treated.

    - If a poem arranges text in specific shapes, or uses white space in a significant way, accessibility text should describe this.

    - If a poem contains images, patterns, or other visual information, these should be concisely described.

    - The text does not have to be completely exhaustive (and too much information may make it harder to understand), but should give a full picture of the poem.

  • If the poetry collection was published in the English language, you are not eligible to submit.

    If the poetry collection was published in a language other than English, this does not affect your eligibility.

FAQS