​Penumbra Journal of Literature and Art at California State University Stanislaus

Invites Submissions for its Spring Print Issue of

Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Hybrid and Art!​

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We at Penumbra, the journal of literature and art at Stanislaus State University, are now accepting submissions for our 2025 print edition. We invite poets, prose writers (composers of short fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, or hybridized creations), and visual artists to share their work with us. We seek to publish the creative output of new, emerging, and established writers from anywhere in the world. As part of an academic community in California’s Great Central Valley, we have a particular interest in literary and artistic works that capture some aspect of life in this region—Valley landscapes, inhabitants, and history—but we also seek fresh perspectives and new 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 therefore seek various perspectives treating any and all topics, regionally, nationally, and globally. Penumbra is staffed entirely by graduate and undergraduate 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 no more than three works of poetry, prose, or art, in any combination (e.g. three poems; a poem, a short story, and a painting; an essay and two paintings; a hybrid essay-poem, a sketch, and a short story, 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 three 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 the opinion of 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.” He goes on to share that when he set out to write The Raven he intended “a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight.”  We’re not word-counters at Penumbra. But we like our poems relatively short—say, between haiku length and about 150 lines or so. Falling outside these parameters won’t automatically disqualify a poem but may indeed strain our readers’ patience.
   

• 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 for the Spring print edition is February 7th at midnight. We look forward to hearing from you!

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For more information, check-out Penumbra’s submission guidelines!