Penumbra, the journal of literature and art at Stanislaus State University, is now accepting submissions for its 2026 print edition. The editorial team invites visual and literary artists—poets, composers of short fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, or hybridized creations—to share their work with us. Our journal has roots in the soil of California’s Great Central Valley, so we encourage submissions from our students and local communities, but we also seek to publish new, emerging, and established writers from anywhere in the world, voices that speak to the connections in our common humanity through the prism of our individual paths in life. We promote fellowship and the sharing of ideas and knowledge and welcome various perspectives treating any and all topics, regionally, nationally, and globally. Penumbra is staffed and run by students at Stanislaus State who are eager to read and consider your work and showcase your creativity. Submission is free and open to all who are interested and dedicated to their craft. We abide by the following guidelines:  

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• Individuals may submit up to five works of poetry, prose, or art, in any combination (e.g. five poems; three poems, a short story, and a painting; an essay and two sketches; a hybrid essay-poem and three sketches; four short stories; a single poem; etc.). 

• Each work must be submitted separately as an individual piece (i.e. upload one piece per submission). Those who include multiple pieces in one submission (by uploading five poems in one document, for example) will not be considered for inclusion in Penumbra. 

• Poetry: avoid the urge to submit “epic” or narrative poems of several hundred lines. We align with Edgar Allan Poe on this matter, who wrote that “there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art—the limit of a single sitting,” one that “can never be properly overpassed in a poem.”  In deference to Poe’s opinion and because of space restrictions in our print journal, we need to keep poems relatively short—no more than 150 lines.  

• Hybrid/Fiction/Non-Fiction: We will not consider individual works in these genres that exceed 1500 words in length. 

• Art: Images must be submitted in jpeg format, with a minimum resolution of 200 dpi.  

• All works must be submitted through Submittable. Again, each work must be  
  uploaded individually. 

• The deadline for submissions is February 6th, 2026, before midnight. 

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