Redivider can now be found at redivider.emerson.edu.
Redivider is operated by the MFA and MA students of the Writing, Literature & Publishing Department at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. We currently publish online twice per year and are the home of the annual Beacon Street Prize and the Blurred Genre Contest.
Redivider seeks previously unpublished works from emerging or established authors and artists. We are excited to publish underrepresented voices as well as “offbeat” texts, art, and hybrid works that may not be welcomed at other journals. Please see each division’s guidelines below, and on our website for more specific preferences.
We will not consider submissions that endorse prejudice, racism, xenophobia, classism, sexism, ableism, fat-shaming, homophobia, or gratuitous violence. We reserve the right to reject such submissions outright and reject further submissions from the author. We also reserve the right to remove content from our journal if an author is known to be harassing or abusive. Current students, faculty, and staff of Emerson College may not submit to redivider.
Please submit your work through this Submittable page only. Redivider will not accept work through email or USPS. Please wait for a response before submitting again. We welcome simultaneous submissions.
Redivider's Summer '23 Blurred Genre special edition explores the fluid boundaries between genres. We welcome all hybrid, genre-blurring and experimental work. Submit your flash nonfiction, visual sci-fi poetry, memoir comics, mixed-media fiction collage with a dash of cultural critique, digital or drawn media—all fall in the broad spectrum of possibilities! All contributors will be paid $30 for accepted work.
Please send us one piece per submission of 3,000 words or less (ten pages or less of graphic media). All submissions must be the author’s original, unpublished work. Simultaneous submissions are okay; just withdraw in Submittable if your piece gets picked up elsewhere.
In your cover letter, please specify in a sentence how your submitted piece blurs the line between textual genre.
Submissions will be open until July 15. The issue will be released in late summer.
Word count: 1,200–6,000 words
Please submit one short fiction piece at a time. Stories shorter than 1,200 words should be submitted under Flash Fiction. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface. Redivider will happily consider genre fiction with strong enough prose, though hard science fiction, high fantasy, etc. will probably fit better at another journal.
Things we already see a lot of:
- Excessive body writing (hands, eyes, eyebrows, throats, mouths, breaths, chills in the spine, etc.)
- Stories about terminal illness
- Privileged family fiction
- Descriptions of the sun and its rays and the color of the sky on the opening page
Things we wish we saw more:
- Satisfying endings
- Characters with complex motives
- Dark humor
- Consistent voice throughout the piece
- Elements of sci-fi and mysticism
- Psychological thrillers
- Real science and real history utilized for theme and setting, (i.e. background research)
- Cli-fi
Word count: 1,200 words or less
Please submit no more than three flash fiction pieces per submission. These pieces will be evaluated by the Redivider Fiction Team and published in a dedicated section apart from other full-length short fiction. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface.
Redivider prefers flash fiction that tells a whole story or describes a scene or situation. Works that function more as meditations on a subject, or which contain little movement or direction may best be considered prose poetry, and should be submitted under Poetry.
Please see the Fiction guidelines for more guidance on content.
Length guidelines: 5 poems max, preferably 10–60 lines per poem
Please submit no more than five poems per submission, up to ten pages, as a single document. We prefer poems around 10–60 lines in length, to best accommodate our online format. We can publish poetry featuring complex enjambment and indentation, but please be reasonable with longer poems, as each work must be carefully typeset, line-by-line, to show up as the artist intended on a web page.
We are looking for new and under-published voices. Submit what you’re worried to send elsewhere. We want poems that circumvent the familiar, that break through abstraction to examine a moment or concept from the side, rather than straight on. We want poems that shift understanding, that reveal core, unexpected truths.
Word count: 6,000 words or less
Please submit a single piece of nonfiction personal essay or memoir to this category. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface. Journalistic works, criticism and commentary, and texts containing substantial background research should be submitted under Nonfiction.
Word count: 8,000 words or less
Please submit a single piece of cultural commentary/critique. We accept both casual and academic-style manuscripts for this genre. These may be essays regarding US or non-US culture. Essays in translation are also welcome. Texts should be double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman or a similar serif typeface.
Memoirs and personal essays should be submitted under that category.
Image count: 6 images or less
Please submit here to be considered for Redivider's digital cover art for our spring 2023 issue. Art submissions can be uploaded as six separate attachments in one submission or, preferably, in a single .ZIP file—please do not send multiple submissions. Please save original images for each piece as a separate .TIF file no larger than 6 x 9 inches and at a resolution of 600dpi for line art and 300 dpi for all others. If your piece is chosen for the cover, you may be contacted for a larger file. Digital submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be considered. Please email us with questions or for alternate submission methods.
Redivider pays $200, including exclusive digital rights, for cover art.