The London Magazine is the UK’s oldest literary magazine, proud to have published some of the biggest names in literature including Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Joan Didion, Gabriel García Márquez and Hilary Mantel. 

We will be open for free submissions during the following periods:

1 – 31 January
1 – 31 March
1 – 31 May
1 – 31 July
1 – 30 September
1 – 30 November

We advise sending in your work nearer the start of the month before we hit our submissions portal’s free quota. We charge a small fee of £3.50 for submissions outside of those windows. During periods in which our prizes are live, we will be closed for open submissions in that category. 

• Please ensure you have submitted your piece through the correct Submittable category. For example, a short story submitted in the poetry category will not be considered. Note that running competitions will have their own Submittable category, which will be clearly signposted.
• If submitting multiple pieces through Submittable, please combine them into one document.
• We only publish original material, i.e. first-ever publication. We cannot run a piece that has already appeared online or elsewhere in print. We can, however, publish an original translation if the work has previously appeared in another language, but never before in English.

Writers should carefully review the guidelines before submitting work via our online portal; any work not in line with the guidelines will not be read. 

We find those who are familiar with the publication stand a far better chance of having their submissions accepted, so we do recommend reading the latest copy of our print magazine which can be purchased via our website.