All submissions to The Yale Review must be in English and previously unpublished in print or online (including on private websites/blogs). We are happy to consider simultaneous submissions but ask that we be notified if a piece is accepted for publication elsewhere. Please note we do not consider pitches through our genre-specific submission forms, only entire pieces. If you have a pitch you’d like us to review, please see our pitch guidelines here.
The Yale Review is an editorially independent organization that relies primarily on its own funds to operate. To defray the labor and web-hosting costs associated with Submittable, we charge $3 per submission. Submitters may claim the cost against a new subscription to the journal. Because financial hardship should not be an impediment to submission, we offer a limited number of fee-free submissions. If for any reason cost is an impediment, please email theyalereview@gmail.com with the subject line "Fee Waiver."
For more information on our fee structure for both print and online pieces, see here. Print authors will receive two copies of the issue in which their work appears. Authors retain copyright of their work and will receive a contract upon acceptance.
We publish criticism driven by a strong argument, bent on going beyond the work at hand or transcending the scope of its subject. In print, we publish a wide array of critical essays, about history, culture, literature, art, and politics, and are particularly eager to read criticism in areas where we have less coverage, such as digital culture, popular culture, music, film, and television. (To determine whether your piece is a good fit for TYR, submitters are encouraged to read recent issues of The Yale Review as well as our ever-growing body of criticism published exclusively online.)
We also accept both argumentative and personal essays. We welcome essays that blend criticism with memoir, command us to see an old subject with fresh eyes, or rescue what has been long overlooked.
We’re looking for pieces of up to 3,000 words for online publication and pieces of up to 5,000 words for our quarterly print issues. Nonfiction submissions should be accompanied by a summary of approximately 250 words describing the nature and scope of the piece or its key claims in the relevant Submittable field.
Please note that we do not consider pitches through Submittable, only entire pieces. For pieces that are urgent or have a timely peg to current events, please see our pitch guidelines here.
The Yale Review publishes fewer short stories than we do nonfiction pieces or poems. We are looking for fiction that stands apart and announces itself urgently: stories from voices we haven’t heard before, and stories with a distinctive use of style. We do not accept or consider novel excerpts unless they work as standalone pieces.
You may submit stories of up to 7,500 words for our print issues. We also consider submissions of very short fiction of up to 2,500 words to publish on our website.
We publish poetry in a wide range of styles, from traditional forms to conceptual experiments. Above all, we want poems that couldn't have been written by anyone but you.
Submit up to five poems in a single document of no more than ten pages total, with each poem beginning on a new page.
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
In books you will read the names of kings.
Was it the kings who dragged the stones into place?
— “Questions of a worker who reads,” by Bertolt Brecht, trans. David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
It’s no secret that the details and indignities of workers’ lives are often underrepresented in literature. The field of poetry has often been particularly negligent of laborers’ workaday experiences.
In that light, the editors of The Yale Review are curating a folio of poems on the theme of work. We welcome submissions of poems in all styles and forms, including poetry in translation. Send us poems exploring all kinds of labor; above all, send us poems that capture what it’s like to work today.
Submit up to five poems in a single document of no more than ten pages total, with each poem beginning on a new page.
We accept both submissions of both poetry and prose translations here. For prose, please send pieces of up to 7,500 words; for poetry, please send no more than five poems. In your cover letter, please also include a brief note contextualizing the project and the writer whom you're translating.
We're interested in writing from across time periods and cultures: historically overlooked work of literary significance, cutting-edge work by living writers, and everything in between. We welcome never-before-translated work in English as well as fresh translations that breathe new life into previously translated works. (The translator should have, or should be able to obtain, permissions from the author or rights-holder for the work.) In every case, we're looking for writing that resonates with The Yale Review''s broad contemporary audience.