Kweli Journal publishes four issues a year.
We read general submissions from September 1 through May 30.
We welcome original, unpublished work from emerging and established writers of color. Please check the website for details.
http://kwelijournal.org
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as they are indicated as such. Authors must immediately notify the editors if said work has been selected for publication in another periodical, either in print or online.
Kweli does NOT accept previously published work.
Contact editors@kwelijournal.org
For prose submissions, submit one (1) short story or one (1) self-contained novel excerpt or creative non-fiction piece of no more than 5,000 words in one single file in doc., rtf, or .pdf format.
For poetry submissions, submit up to three poems totaling no more than 6 pages in one single file in doc., rtf, or .pdf format.
In this special NOVEMBER 2026 issue of Kweli, guest edited by ARIANA BENSON, we invite BIPOC writers to submit up to 10 pages of your poetry for an opportunity to be published in our inaugural all-poetry issue (125-150 pages). Out of the selections published, Kweli editors will award to one contributor a week-long residency (winter, spring, or fall 2027), inclusive of a $1,000 stipend for travel and food, at Writers & Books’ bucolic Gell Retreat in New York States’s Finger Lakes region. All contributors will receive payment after publication.
BENSON is a southern Black poet-storyteller. Her debut poetry collection, Black Pastoral (University of Georgia Press, 2023) won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Leonard Prize and the Library of Virginia Prize in Poetry. Her poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in POETRY, Callaloo, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Benson is a proud alumna of Spelman College, where she facilitates creative writing and storytelling workshops for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Timeline
• Deadline to submit: September 14, 2026
• Contributors announced: October 15, 2026
• Publication Date: November 2, 2026
• Gell Resident announced: January 3, 2027
Submission Guidelines
• Submit up to three poems totaling no more than 10 pages in a single file in doc., rtf, or .pdf format.
Please note:
• We do not consider submissions that endorse discrimination including racism, homophobia, sexism, and xenophobia, or feature gratuitous violence or sexual content.
•. We do not accept previously published work.
•. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as they are indicated as such. Authors must immediately notify the editors if said work has been selected for publication in another periodical, either in print or online. Contact editors@kwelijournal.org
•. Payment is made after publication.
•. All published work will be archived online.