Our Acceptance Categories:

When we publish work, our editorial team places it in an animal category: Sanderling 9-10, Honey Bee 6-7-8, Puffin 1-5. This reminds us to gather a bigger crowd and not constrain the idea of writers worth publishing. Here's a little more on what categories represent:

• Sanderling 9-10 -- We probably fell out of our seats reading your work. -and/or- Your work fits the current moment very well.

• Honey Bee 6-7-8 -- We see something special in your work and want others to as well.

• Puffin 1-5 -- We celebrate a very nice feature of your work.

• Pass -- We determined your work wasn't a fit for us at the time. -and/or- Your work did not fit our criteria for submissions.

If we pass on or select your work, please wait 90 days before submitting again. At that time, you may submit different work or a newer version of previously submitted work that we passed on.

Please read the following in its entirety before submitting work to us.

(1) SUBMISSIONS FOR PUBLICATION CONSIDERATION 

What & where to submit:

• 1 poem, up to 150 words. pdf, doc, docx, or odt formats only. If your piece requires particular formatting, we encourage pdf.

• Only send us your original work that retain copyright for, wholly made by you, not artificial intelligence.

• Yes, you can submit previously published work -- just include the original publication (including if it was a personal website) and a note that you have full permission for us to re-print.

• A very short bio.

• Send submissions to: papersigh (at) gmail (dot) com. All submissions must be submitted to our email address. Submissions sent in any other format will be passed on without notice. We use email because otherwise we'd have to charge to cover the cost of using a submission system.

Other guidelines:

• Simultaneous submissions are OK -- but let us know immediately if you are withdrawing a piece.

• Writers must be 18 or older to submit work.

• We have no themes. We are genre-agnostic. We publish on a rolling basis, not on an issue basis.

• Thank you for * not * submitting work that discriminates against any person, is made with AI, plagiarizes, remixes, or resets others' work, or celebrates violence against others. Regarding others' work, including work in the public domain: We are not currently considering settings, remixes, resets, interpretations, copies, samples, or interpolations of any work. This means, but is not limited to, no setting of public-domain poems and no adaptations of others' work.

• Regarding accessibility and software, we believe that speech-to-text software is often the most accessible way for some writers to write and composers to compose, and that such software is fully accessible without AI contributing to the actual writing or composition.

• n. b., generally, we find that it's a challenge for most writers / composers to employ swear words or X-rated scenes in ways that serve their work well.

• n. b., similarly, we find that it's a challenge for many to employ specialized / historic / dialect speech in a way that serves their work well.

• At this time, we're not accepting work in translation. Also, due to our language limitations, we're only accepting work in English -- though it's great / perfectly OK that some writers / composers naturally employ non-English words in primarily English work when needed for emphasis, character veracity, correctness, and the like.

• Sometimes we are very fast readers. In fact, a guiding goal is to accept or pass on a submission within three weeks of the submission date. So if we get back to you quickly -- even extremely quickly -- please know that we really did read your work and appreciate you trusting us with it.

• So ... send us a great creation that you're nodding at. Yes, feel nice about your writing. We know we want to.

And some of the legal stuff:

By submitting work to Paper Sigh you are entering into an agreement:

1. that you are an adult and agree to all above guidelines for submissions;

2. to be published if we choose your work -- and know that submitting work comprises your agreement to be published; 

3. to accept the editorial decision of any animal or other category your work is placed in;

4. that our editorial team may make minor edits to accepted work without additional approval of the author;

5. that we may publish or perform your work that we accept for publication at no cost to us, in perpetuity, on any platforms or in any format, offered to any audience as free or paid, recorded or unrecorded, current or future;

6. that the writer / composer retains copyright access to their work, so they may place it again or sell it without our permission; and

7. that writers / composers we publish will do their best to acknowledge us as they continue along their publishing journeys.

8. We don't mention FNASR explicitly because we are not solely interested in unpublished work. Please make sure if you are submitting a work that has been published elsewhere that you are not in violation of another publication's terms.

(2) SUBMISSIONS THAT ADD ON A REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK

We are not currently accepting requests for feedback or in other categories.

(3) SUBMISSIONS TO VOLUNTEER OR WORK FOR US

Readers / Guest Editors: We are not currently accepting applications in these or similar categories.