Thank you for your interest in River & South Review, the literary magazine associated with the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University.

River & South Review seeks to be a home for work that evokes a visceral reaction, encourages continued conversation, captures the adventures of life, and spurs our readers to go find their own adventures to write about.

As writers, we want writing that makes us wish we had written it. We want writing that makes us think and wonder; laugh and cry; sigh and scream; nod our heads yes and no. We want work that stays with us long after we’ve left the page. And, of course, we want all of this in well-crafted pieces that demonstrate skill with form and language.

The editorial staff of River & South values inclusivity and diversity. To that end, we especially welcome the opportunity to read and consider work by under-represented and marginalized voices including but not limited to Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian, and South Asian writers, members of the LBGTQA+ community, writers with disabilities, and older adults. 

River & South Review publishes twice each year – a Summer issue in June and a Winter issue in January.

Submissions open February 15 for summer issues. Submissions open August 30 for winter issues.

For those who have previously submitted, please wait one entire submission period before presenting additional creative work.

River & South Review only publishes previously unpublished work. We consider content appearing in print and online journals, anthologies, books, and personal blogs as published.

Currently, we do not publish AI-generated work. Please do not submit poems, essays, or short stories you’ve created using AI.

We do not publish work by anyone with an affiliation to Wilkes University, the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing, or the writing workshops that Wilkes University offers.

  • Fiction – submit one (1) original, previously unpublished story up to 2,500 words in a .doc, .docx, or pdf file and title each as follows: YourLastname_Title.
  • Nonfiction – submit one (1) original, previously unpublished essay up to 2,500 words as a .doc, .docx or pdf file and title each as follows: YourLastname_Title.
  • Poetry – submit up to three (3) original, previously unpublished poems in one document (.doc, .docx, or pdf) and title as follows: YourLastname_NumberofPoems.
  • Stage and Screen Scripts – submit one (1) original, previously unpublished script up to 12 pages in a .doc, .docx, or pdf file and title as follows: YourLastname_Title. Script submissions may be one acts, or a complete scene from a longer work. Send us your dialogue-driven works whose characters will make us wish they were real people we could meet in person. Formatting for stage and screen scripts: Center and capitalize all titles. Place your name underneath the title. Left justify character names and descriptions.Dialogue is also justified left with the character’s name, followed by a colon and then the dialogue. If there is a stage direction it should come after the colon and be enclosed in parentheses and italicized. Dialogue then follows in normal type.Please do not send plays in Standard American Format or screenplays in Final Draft format. For publication purposes and to keep our production team happy, we publish scripts using print formatting. Scripts that do not adhere to our formatting requirements will not be read or considered for publication.

Once you submit in any genre, you may not re-submit a revised version during the same submission period. 

You may send one submission per genre per reading period.

We welcome simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately if a piece you submitted is accepted elsewhere.

We are unable to offer payment to contributors at this time.

River & South Review requests First North American Serial Rights and the right to archive our contributors’ work. All other rights revert back to the author upon publication. Please acknowledge River & South Review as the journal of first publication when placing your work elsewhere.

We only accept submissions via Submittable. Please do not email your submissions.

If we reach our capacity, we will close submissions before the deadline. So, submit early!