Submissions

Check out our new contest! It’s open for registration now and runs October 10-19!

an ordinary contest

Here at Foofaraw, we are running our first contest! Let’s take the ordinary and make it weird. Submission period: October 10–October 19, 2025 Entry fee: $5 Word limit: 1,500–3,000 words The fee goes up to $10 on October 1st. Entries can be purchased after the

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And we recently kicked off nominations for our inaugural awards, The Foofs:

The Foofs (2025)

an award “show” for the weird and the wonderful

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We have six calls:

Currently open:

• An ordinary contest: OPEN for registration
  • Writing period runs October 10-19
  • Guidelines
• The Foofs (Annual awards): OPEN for nominations
  • Short story awards for stories published in 2025
  • Guidelines

Closed

• Main Call for the Web: CLOSED until October 2025
  • Guidelines
• The anthology: CLOSED until January 2026
  • Guidelines

Always open

• Op-eds: ALWAYS OPEN
  • Guidelines
• Novella/Novelettes: ALWAYS OPEN — please get in touch with us first
  • Guidelines

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

You can find us on Submission Grinder and Chill Subs

General Guidelines

Word Limit: 

• Main Digital Zine
  • 250-2500
• The Anthology
  • 500-5000
• Novella + Novelette Guidelines
  • 7500-15000
• Op-eds
  • 750-1250

Pay Rate: 

• Fiction: $0.01 per word
• Poetry: $5.00
• Op-ed: $5.00
• or $0.0125 per word as credit towards site sponsorship

Language: 

• English

Rights: 

We request first serial rights and non-exclusive, indefinite archival rights. Any rights not used by the publisher within twelve months will return to the author.

Authors always own their writing and can take it and do whatever they'd like with it. We just get to publish it and share it with the world.

Requirements:

• We do not accept multiple submissions from a single person at a time (within a single submission type)
• Simultaneous submissions are okay as long as it's noted and withdrawn immediately if accepted elsewhere
• We do not accept work created or assisted by AI.

What are we looking for

• Fiction
• Comics
• Humor/Satire
• Poetry
• Op-eds
• and anything else that fits the vibe

Fiction

The general areas/genres of interest for fiction in foofaraw are:

• Magical Realism
• Speculative Fiction
• Sci-Fi
• Fantasy
• Literary
• LGBTQIA+
• Horror
• Mystery
• Noir
• Odd / Surreal / Absurdist / Experimental

Mainstream authors we enjoy include: Robin Sloan, Cory Doctorow, Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Tamsyn Muir, Ray Nayler, Martha Wells, Corey J. White, and fiction from McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Uncanny Magazine, The New Yorker, Flash Fiction Online, GigaNotoSaurus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and The Paris Review.

Serialized works are welcome.

Magazine inspirations include Believer, The New Yorker, NY and London Review of Books, Real Review, Delayed Gratification, Cereal, New York, Monocle, The Modernist, and The Economist.

Recurring column ideas are welcome.