SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED.

THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING UBWALI LITERARY MAGAZINE AS A HOME FOR YOUR WORK. FOR YOUR BEST CHANCE AT ACCEPTANCE, PLEASE READ THIS PAGE IN FULL BEFORE MAKING YOUR SUBMISSION, AS ENTRIES THAT DO NOT FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES WILL RECEIVE AN AUTOMATIC REJECTION.

SUBMISSION WINDOWS

We read in January, May, and July by the last day of those months at midnight CAT.

SUBMISSION PORTALS

After reading all guidelines, please submit Here

ELIGIBLE WORK

Short stories, essays, visual art (including photography) and poems.

ELIGIBLE ARTISTS

Zambian artists living anywhere in the world may submit during all submission periods.

Non-Zambian artists – African artists living in Africa and only African artists living in Africa may submit in January of every year.

Submissions received outside of these windows will be deleted unread.

WORD LIMITS

3000-6000 words for prose (fiction and essays) or 1-3 poems in a single document.

FORMATTING INSTRUCTIONS

Word document (not PDF) typed in a legible, plain font such as Arial, Book Antiqua, Georgia, Garamond, or Times New Roman. Please keep font size to 12pt and 1.5 spaced. 

Visual Art submissions must contain 5 -10 images/art in a single document. All submissions must be unpublished in digital or print media (including social media). Images must be inclusive, positive, representative, unique, and creative in colour or black and white. Image size must be between 5 MB and 10 MB.

OTHER LOGISTICS

Poetry and Prose must be in English but may contain Zambian languages. Poems may be in English/and or Bemba, Nyanja, Lozi, Tonga, Luvale, Lunda, and Kaonde or a combination of English and any Zambian language.

Please ensure that your work is free from obvious grammatical errors prior to submission. We do not allow revision while your work is under consideration

No AI-generated work will be considered.

RESPONSE TIME

Within six weeks after the close of each submission period. 

MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS

Please submit only one piece and to only one category per submission period. 

RE-SUBMISSIONS

If a submission is rejected, please do not resubmit the same work.

TRANSLATIONS

Translations are not accepted. 

NOVEL EXCERPTS

Novel excerpts are accepted provided they are unpublished, self-contained and within our word limit.

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

We read and strongly encourage simultaneous submissions. However, please remember to withdraw if accepted elsewhere. To withdraw, email ubwalimagazine@gmail.com with the title and genre of your piece in the subject line.

REPUBLISHING

Unless solicited by one of our editors, only unpublished submissions will be read. Self-publication of any kind, including on social media platforms, counts as a publication.

Ubwali requests the first serial rights of every piece we accept for publication. All rights will revert to you 90 days after publication. Please credit  Ubwali Literary Magazine as a first publication if your work is republished elsewhere.

CO-AUTHORED WORK

We do not accept co-authored work.

SUBMISSION FEES

We do not charge reading fees. If you like the work we do, please consider making a donation so that we can pay our artists.

PAYMENT

A one off, $10 payment will be offered to artists whose work is accepted for publication. We pay per artist, not per piece.

If you are accepted for and subsequently published in Ubwali Literary Magazine, please wait at least two issues after being published before submitting work to the same genre. There are no limitations if you want to submit to a different genre.

We are a volunteer team, so please note that submissions are now capped to allow us to give each submission the time it deserves. 

IF YOU ARE ACCEPTED

Congratulations! You are in awesome company. Due to budgeting restrictions, we can only accept about 2% of the amazing submissions we receive. We are an editing magazine. You can expect to work closely with the section editor prior to publication. We copy edit everything we publish.

WHILE YOU WAIT

We read every submission, sometimes many times before making a decision. If we are taking longer than usual to respond, it means your work is still under consideration. While you wait, consider following us on X, Instagram & Facebook where we provide regular updates about the magazine.