1. Poetry can be submitted year-round. There are no submission deadlines. Amazing Stories will not have closed periods for poetry submissions. Poetry submissions are open even if Fiction submissions are closed.
2. A poet can submit up to three poems. A poet may only have up to three poems under consideration at one time. If a poet has three poems under consideration, the poet must wait until one of those poems is rejected before submitting another poem.
3. Submit each poem individually.
4. We prefer to publish poems that are 3–30 lines. Poems over 60 lines will not be considered.
5. Must be genre/speculative and positive/optimistic. Think of the “Amazing” in the name of the magazine. We have a strong preference for poems that take a bright view of human ingenuity and the possible futures we can create.
6. Must be original. Poems created completely or partially by any AI program are not considered original and should not be submitted.
7. Must be unpublished. Poems that have appeared in print or online (including social media posts), are considered published.
8. No simultaneous submissions.
9. The system we use requires a title for each piece. If your poem is untitled, the poem will appear with “untitled” or “Untitled” as the title.
10. We recommend standard manuscript format for poems, single-spaced.
11. Please use American spelling.
12. Each submission must include a cover letter, including your name, mailing address and email address. If you know your Amazing Stories username for your account, please include it in the cover letter.
13. We use blind judging. Anonymous submissions only, please. Do not include your name or address or bio on the poems, or they will be rejected as a ‘guidelines failure.’
14. Submit using our online submission system. Create an account at Amazing Stories Submissions (https://submissions.amazingstories.com/)
15. Remember to check off “Poetry” on your submission.
16. Payment and acceptance.
Payment is a flat fee of $15 USD. We use PayPal to process the payment. The one fee covers the appearance of the poem in both online and print editions.
Amazing Stories accepts poems for its online edition but may reprint the poem in its print publications (quarterly magazine and/or yearly anthology).
17. Anticipated response time is up to two months after the poem was submitted.
18. You can query if you have not heard a response three months after your submission. Please send one email to all three poetry editors. See the “Poetry Editor” section, for names and contact info.
Publishing schedule:
Amazing Stories (online) is planning on publishing one poem per month, normally on the first Wednesday of each month.
If your poem is accepted for publication / conditions for acceptance:
Acceptance is conditional on a number of things. You will be asked to confirm that the poem is original (written by you, without the assistance of AI), and never-before-published, to verify your email address and mailing address, and to provide a short bio (75-word maximum) written in the third person. Failure to provide these in a timely manner may result in a delay or cancellation of your appearance in Amazing Stories.
Amazing Stories publishes a maximum of one poem per contributor per calendar year. Do not submit again until there is a new calendar year after your appearance.
Even though rights do revert back to the contributor three months after publication, the poem will forever exist in the issue it appeared in (online), and on storage devices that Amazing Stories uses to store its issues.
If you subsequently publish the poem after the rights revert to you, we would like a publishing credit, along the lines of “First published in Amazing Stories (specify month/year of publication).”
As noted earlier in the guidelines, we use PayPal to pay our contributors.
We include an image with each poem, and an audio version. Failure to agree on an image and audio recording may result in a delay or cancellation of your appearance in Amazing Stories.
Poetry Editors / Editing Process
There are three co-equal poetry editors:
Carolyn Clink [CarolynClink@yahoo.ca]
David Clink [DavidLClink@gmail.com]
Herb Kauderer [HerbKauderer@gmail.com]
Your poem(s) will be read by all three editors, all of whom can make acceptance decisions, but generally they would decide as a group which poems should appear. Amazing Stories does not use first readers for its poetry. The editors may make editorial suggestions, but these are just suggestions, and the poet has final say on the text / title of their poem. In some cases, a poem with a lot of potential (but needing an edit) is moved to Editorial Review, where poems that are neither rejected nor accepted reside, and if the poet and the editors can agree on an edit in a timely manner, and the conditions for acceptance are met (as noted in the “If your poem is accepted for publication / conditions for acceptance” section), the poem will find a place in Amazing Stories.
