We’re excited to read your writing! We welcome work from emerging and established writers alike, and we often publish new voices that we first encounter in our Submittable queue. Please read our guidelines closely so we can best consider your piece. We encourage you to read recent issues of The Yale Review (accessible online) and our online-only prose and poetry to determine whether your work is a good fit for us. We read submissions from September to May. We read everything with care, and we will respond, but it may take us some time.
General Guidelines
All submissions to The Yale Review must be in English, and all must be previously unpublished in print or online, including on personal websites, blogs, or Substacks. We are happy to consider simultaneous submissions, but we kindly ask that you notify us promptly if a piece is accepted for publication elsewhere. Please note that we review only completed pieces, not pitches, through Submittable. (During designated windows, we consider pitches and time-sensitive topical pieces via email, as detailed in our Pitch Guidelines.)
Fees & Fee Waivers
The Yale Review relies primarily on its own funds to operate. To defray the labor and software costs associated with Submittable, we charge three dollars per submission. Submitters may claim this fee against a new subscription to the journal. Because we believe that financial hardship should not be a barrier to submission, we offer a limited number of fee-free submissions; to request a waiver, please email theyalereview@gmail.com with the subject line “Fee Waiver.”
Compensation
For information about compensation for print and online pieces, please visit the Submissions page of our website. Print contributors will receive two complimentary copies of the issue in which their work appears. Upon acceptance of their work, all contributors will receive a contract outlining payment and rights. Contributors retain full copyright of their work.
Editing
Please note that we reserve the right to edit accepted pieces for length, clarity, tone, and house style in collaboration with the writer.
Timing
Every submission will receive a response by the end of May. We are unable to respond to inquiries about the status of your submission via email.
AI Guidelines
The Yale Review publishes writing grounded in human insight, voice, and responsibility. While we recognize that some writers may use generative AI technologies in the course of their work, our priority remains publishing pieces of human authorship and expression.
Writers submitting to TYR should keep the following in mind:
- Primary authorship must be human. We do not accept submissions that rely on AI to generate entire drafts, arguments, or analyses.
- Process-level use is acceptable. AI technologies may be used to support your process—for example, to generate prompts or organize research—especially in projects that reflect on or engage with AI itself.
- Transparency matters. If a piece incorporates AI-generated language or structure in a meaningful or visible way, please briefly indicate, at the time of submission, how AI was used in the composition of the piece.
- Writers are responsible for accuracy. All factual claims in a piece must be verified. As always, TYR conducts its own round of fact-checking prior to publication.
- Editorial review is always human. Every piece published in The Yale Review is reviewed and shaped by human editors, and we remain committed to work that reflects lived experience and individual sensibilities.
For both print and web publication, we accept essays of all kinds—personal, memoir, reported, lyric, and hybrid—up to six thousand words long; web-only pieces tend to be on the shorter side. We welcome pieces that blend criticism with memoir, command us to see an old subject with new eyes, or shine light on something long overlooked. Our front-of-book critical essays (as distinct from reviews that appear in the back of our journal) tend to make a strong argument or cultural intervention that makes their occasion self-evident. For strong examples of front-of-book criticism, see these essays by Susan Choi and Garth Greenwell.
- Nonfiction submissions should be accompanied by a summary of approximately 250 words that describes the nature and scope of the piece or its key claims.
- Every submission will receive a response by the end of May. We are unable to respond to inquiries about the status of your submission via email.
- Please note that we do not consider pitches through Submittable. For time-sensitive topical pieces or if you want to propose a review, please pitch us here.
The Yale Review is looking for fiction that stands apart and announces its urgency: stories from voices we haven’t heard before and stories with a distinctive perspective, structure, or style. We seek work that surprises us—whether emotionally, formally, or intellectually. We do not accept or consider novel excerpts unless they work as stand-alone pieces.
You may submit stories of up to six thousand words for print publication. We also consider submissions of very short fiction (ideally no longer than three thousand words) for web publication.
Every submission will receive a response by the end of May. We are unable to respond to inquiries about the status of your submission via email.
We publish a wide range of poetry, from traditional forms to experimental ones. Above all, we want poems that couldn’t have been written by anyone but you—work that is singular in voice, form, or vision. For an idea of the breadth of our tastes, take a look at recent work by Tommy Pico, Andrew Motion, and Alyssa Moore.
Submit up to five poems in a single document of no more than ten pages in total, with each poem beginning on a new page. We welcome work from emerging and established writers alike.
Every submission will receive a response by the end of May. We are unable to respond to inquiries about the status of your submission via email.
We accept prose in English translation here. We welcome never-before-translated prose and, on occasion, translations that breathe new life into frequently translated works. (The translator should have, or should be able to obtain, publication permission from the author or the rights holder. If permission has not yet been secured, please indicate that status in your cover letter.) We’re looking for fresh, inspired writing that resonates with The Yale Review’s audience.
- In your cover letter, please include a brief note contextualizing the work of the writer you have translated.
- You may submit story and essay translations of up to six thousand words for print publication. We do not accept or consider excerpts from longer works (novels, memoirs, etc.) unless they work as stand-alone pieces.
- Every submission will receive a response by the end of May. We are unable to respond to inquiries about the status of your submission via email.
We accept poems in English translation here. We welcome never-before-translated poetry and, on occasion, translations that breathe new life into frequently translated works. (The translator should have, or should be able to obtain, publication permission from the author or the rights holder. If permission has not yet been secured, please indicate that status in your cover letter.) We’re looking for fresh, inspired writing that resonates with The Yale Review’s audience.
- In your cover letter, please include a brief note contextualizing the work of the writer you have translated.
- Submit up to five translated poems in a single document of no more than ten pages in total, with each poem beginning on a new page.
- Every submission will receive a response by the end of May. We are unable to respond to inquiries about the status of your submission via email.