We publish both web features and a quarterly print journal; if you have a preference for web or print publication, you can note that preference in your cover letter; we will offer digital or print publication based on our current publishing needs. Regardless of platform, you can expect a payment of $50 for poetry and $100 for prose. (These are minimum payments and may increase in the event of increased funding or special initiatives.)
We are open for submissions of critical writing year-round, including reviews of books, performances, and exhibits; general nonfiction; literary and arts criticism; public-facing scholarship; and interviews.
We are open for submissions of poetry, fiction, literary translation, personal essay, and creative nonfiction in September and October; read our guidelines here. While we are not currently open to unsolicited submissions of non-literary visual art, we DO consider submissions of literary work with visual components (comics, visual poetry, photo essays, and so on), and you can submit those in the genre category you think fits best.
We are open to simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw your work promptly if it is accepted elsewhere. Please send a message if a flash fiction piece or poem from your submission is accepted elsewhere, so we know what's still available.
We open for contest submissions for the Stephen Dixon Fiction Prize for JHU affiliates and Anne Frydman Translation Prize for emerging and early career translators in April; read about the prizes and their guidelines here.
We open for the fMRI Writing Prize, a unique new flash fiction fiction contest for Baltimore's youth and adult writers, from November 15 through January 15. This contest is free to enter. Read more here.
Our three-dollar administrative fee is waived for subscribers, as are our contest fees. If you are interested in becoming a subscriber, click here. Subscribers can send submissions of any kind year round; if you are a subscriber, email thehopkinsreview@gmail.com to request your fee-waived "Subscriber Submission" link.
For a sense of what we publish, buy an issue, check out our open-access web features, or take a look at our recent open-access issues on Project MUSE.
Thank you for your interest in The Hopkins Review.
Our second Fiction Made to Read & Investigate (fMRI) Writing Prize contest cycle is open! This time, we invite flash fiction from Baltimore writers, both youth and adult, that plays with "causal structures"; what makes what happen when? How are events related? Rather than a step-by-step chain of events, we encourage writers to get wild with their stories, using flashbacks, interwoven storylines, twists and turns that surprise or shed new light on what came before, and other literary techniques that complicate the narrative. Experiment and get creative—within 500 to 1500 words. The Hopkins Review team will be leading some generative community writing workshops, and the contest opens November 15.
Eligibility
Adult writers (18+) who are residents of Baltimore City (including students currently enrolled in in-person college or graduate programs in Baltimore City) are eligible to submit work to the fMRI Writing Prize.
High school writers (14 – 18) who live in Baltimore City are eligible to submit work to the fMRI Youth Writing Prize.
Entry Rules and Criteria
Open for submissions from Nov 15 to Jan 15, writers should submit one piece of original flash fiction that demonstrates complexity in causal structure (a story of 500-1500 words). We can only consider previously unpublished work (stories that have been self-published in their entirety on social media or personal websites are also ineligible), and work that is not AI-generated. Stories will be considered by the Hopkins Review editorial team, with input from the scientific team in the Chen Lab.
Stories will be evaluated on their literary merits. Plots can certainly be complex, ambiguous, or nuanced; and language can certainly be dynamic and surprising.
One or more winners will be chosen from both the youth and adult contests.
Winner & Finalist Prizes
The winning stories will be used in neuroscience experiments: Dr. Chen’s lab will record brain activity while people are reading or listening to the stories, and as they talk about the stories, in order to study the neural systems that support memory. Each winner will receive publication by The Hopkins Review as an open-access online feature at HopkinsReview.com (including standard publishing contracts, granting nonexclusive world rights and permission to reproduce in print and audio for scientific papers), a $500 prize, participation in a public event/reading, a written report about their story’s experiment results, and a framed graphic created from their story’s brain data.
Additional finalists may be selected for publication, in which case they will receive a $100 prize. This is a free contest, supported by the Chen Lab, The Hopkins Review, and the JHU Discovery Awards.
We consider book reviews and literary essays/criticism, public-facing scholarship, and arts criticism (film, dance, theater, performance, visual art, and beyond) year-round. We welcome reviews of work in translation, books published by smaller presses and university presses, and work that has received less critical attention. If you are including work by another artist or artists (visual art or a substantial literary excerpt, for example) in your review or essay, it is your responsibility to obtain permission and cover any permissions fees. Submit one work at a time, but feel free to let us know in your cover letter if you would be interested in contributing critical writing on a more regular basis.
Please do not submit fiction, poetry, translation, or personal essays and creative nonfiction without a critical or craft connection; we consider those during our yearly open reading period for creative work in September and October.
We publish both web features and a quarterly print journal; while we can consider a preference for web or print, we cannot accommodate all such requests, and we will offer digital or print publication based on our current publishing needs. Regardless of platform, you can expect a payment of $100 for prose. (This may increase in the event of increased funding or special initiatives.)
Our submission fee is waived for subscribers. If you are interested in a subscription, click here. If you subscribe, email thehopkinsreview@gmail.com to request a private, fee-waived “Subscriber Submission” portal to submit your work. Subscribers can submit in any genre at any time of year.
For a sense of what we publish, buy an issue, check out our open-access web features, or take a look at the year's sample print issue on Project MUSE.
Thank you for your interest in The Hopkins Review.
We are actively seeking essays that engage with the seventeen years of literature and culture in The Hopkins Review’s quarterly print archive, available on Project MUSE. These essays could take a number of different forms including but not limited to essays that . . .
- contextualize a piece first published in The Hopkins Review aesthetically, historically, or in its author’s body of work
- give a close reading of a particular piece
- provide a pedagogical framework to encourage and enable instructors to incorporate work from The Hopkins Review in their teaching of creative writing or literature
- memorialize an author’s passing and celebrate their body of work using their work in The Hopkins Review as a jumping-off point
- draw attention to a newly published book that includes a piece or pieces first published in The Hopkins Review
- continue a conversation begun in a piece first published in The Hopkins Review
There is no submission fee to submit to this special call; a digital subscription or print+digital package gives access to THR's entire archive. Subscribe today.