Submissions Thank you for your interest in Bridge, Chicago’s independent, intersectional hard bound journal of art and public scholarship. We welcome submissions in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, visual art, cultural criticism, design, and hybrid work from established as well as emerging writers and artists. We also have editorial departments for music, dance, architecture (unless design) and philosophy, couture and others that we do not accept submissions for here — please pitch ideas for these departments to us directly at [email protected].
We are especially interested in work that embraces the world and continues, however subtly, the ongoing global conversation about culture and society that Bridge has championed from its beginning in 1999. We also accept reviews and interviews, which we publish throughout the year at our online magazine, bridge-chicago.org. Back issues are available in our member’s area archives. A free membership is required for access.
How to Submit: We accept all submissions through Submittable, an online submissions system. There is no charge to create a Submittable account, but please note that we do charge a small reading fee to help cover the costs of the software and some operating expenses. We do not accept mailed or emailed submissions. As a periodical, we publish the Bridge Journal when we have sufficient material to justify it, and accept submissions year-round in the following categories:
The Ephemera & Marginalia category accepts submissions for sub-category projects and ongoing initiatives in the hard bound Bridge Journal. PLEASE note which category you are submitting to in your cover letter, and follow the instructions for submission unique to each. These currently include:
Spot Illustrations is an ongoing New Yorker-style collection of illustrations arranged throughout the various texts, we accept original drawings, watercolors, and small paintings of work that can be inserted between text columns, as headers and etc. throughout the layout. Please visit the Bridge Journal archives for examples of past work.
Marginalia is a category for submission of work to appear in the margins of Bridge Journal pages. These may include but are not limited to glosses (annotations), critiques, doodles, drolleries, illuminations or Sergio Aragonés-style margin cartoons.
Comics are full-page (and not necessarily single-page) comics that appear at the end of select editions of the Bridge Journal, and have included New Yorker cartoonists such as Shannon Wheeler, Xerix Foundation winner David Lasky, and others.
The deadline for submissions to be considered for the next volume of Bridge (V24 N1) is 11:59pm on October 1, 2023. This is for our regular “annual” journal, organized by members of the Bridge artistic collective, who also serve as section editors.
For all Ephemera & Marginalia submissions, please include in your cover letter the title, year, author and any other information. Please also include a mailing address and 250-word or less bio with your submission.
Please refer to our submissions guidelines before submitting your work, and for information on other categories. We accept simultaneous submissions. You can withdraw or edit your submission at anytime by logging into your account. To learn more about Bridge and our mission as a periodical, please refer to our masthead page.