Submission Guidelines

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Notes from the Underground welcomes submissions from high school students all across the country.

We publish poetry, short fiction, essays (scholarly and lyric), short plays, comics, drawings, painting, printmaking, and photography.

Our journal is published twice each academic year, in an edition of (at least) 250 full color perfect-bound books. Additionally, all issues are catalogued through Sora, the e-library app. Each issue appears in its entirety on our website, as well.

All submissions are read by our editorial staff and are responded to within 3 months’ time. We will notify all writers and artists of our decision as quickly as possible.

Guidelines: NFTU only accepts previously unpublished work.

If a piece submitted to NFTU is accepted elsewhere before we have made our decision, please notify us at once so we can remove it from consideration.

We are unable to read or respond to submissions during the summer. Our reading periods are from August 15th to October 31st, and the first of January to March 19.

Writers are advised to read the journal before submitting work.

Prose submissions: Manuscripts should be double-spaced, right margins not justified; 1,500-7,000 words.

Poetry submissions: Please submit between 1-6 poems in one document, not to exceed a total of 12 pages.

Art: please submit files in jpeg format.

Make sure your name and email are in the header on all pages. Number your pages consecutively. For submissions of more than one poem, please start each poem on a new page. We prefer easy to read fonts such as Times New Roman 12 pt or Garamond 12 pt.

All submissions should include a cover letter with a brief (50-100 word) bio about yourself, what grade you are in, and where you attend high school.

To begin the submissions process for Notes from the Underground, please open an account by clicking “Sign Up/Log In” in the top right hand corner of any webpage.