Submissions Are Open Until 7/15
MER will be open until July 15, 2025 for literary and art submissions to our annual print issue on the theme of Mother and Family. All submissions are through Submittable.
We publish poetry (up to 3 poems, no more than 5 pages), and fiction, creative prose/nonfiction, and hybrid works (up to 1000 words) on mothering or motherhood. We also seek mother-themed art. You need not be a mother to submit. Our calendar conforms to Eastern Time.
The theme of this issue will be “Mother and Family.”
What We’re Looking For: Work that focuses on a mother’s interactions with other family members.
Often mothers are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around us. Family of heritage, family of birth, family of choice, our greater human family: our families can be sources of support, of exhaustion, of love, of pain. Our families can pass down to us lore or trauma. For MER 24, we are exploring works that address our role as mother in these unwieldy units, how we embroider with and untangle these familial threads that can heal or hinder.
How has family impacted you, and how do you influence family? Show us mothers with their own parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings; mothers and partners, mothers and children, mothers’ observations of family dynamics, mothers with chosen families. Send us your poems, your family recipes, your generational myths, your memories that you’ve borne, your visions for the future.
Regular Submissions ($3 fee or free with subscription purchase) 4/24-7/15.
We will respond by November 2025. The issue will be published in April 2026.