Sumac Literary Magazine publishes work by people connected to Carleton University and/or the
land it is on. Students, alumni, faculty, staff, community members, and anyone with links to our
campus or community are welcome to submit their work for consideration. If you walk your dog
along the waterfront, drive past the Carleton sign each morning, once applied to Carleton, or ever
attended a Ravens vs Gee-Gees event (for example), your submissions are welcome.

Submissions are only accepted by email. Please send submissions to cusumacmag@gmail.com.
Note that this email will not be frequently monitored in the Fall 2025 term. You should expect to
hear from the team during the Winter 2026 term.

In the body of the email, please write a cover letter that includes your name, contact information, and a brief biographical statement in the third person. The biographical statement should include a brief description of your connection to Carleton University, its campus, or the land it is on. Cover letters should also include the titles of the pieces you have enclosed, and a sense of your publication experience, if any. Please include a word count for fiction, non-fiction, and creative non-fiction pieces.

Send your work as an attachment to your email submission; work should not be copy-pasted into
the body of your email. Please submit your work in DOC or DOCX format. If your work
contains special formatting or visual elements, please send your work as a PDF. If you are
submitting multiple pieces (i.e. 3 poems) please send each piece in a separate document. Please
use a standard font such as Times New Roman.

You may submit in various genres, but please send separate emails for each genre you are
submitting (i.e. submit 3 poems in one email, a 6,000-word creative non-fiction essay in another
email, and a 750-word flash fiction piece in a third email). Please specify the genre of the
piece(s) you are submitting in the subject line of your email.

Suitable work should be original and unpublished either in print or online. Simultaneous
submissions are welcome, but please update us as soon as possible with any changes to the status of your submission. Accepted work will be published either/or both in print and online, so you
will be asked to give us first North American serial print rights and limited, non-exclusive digital
rights. Authors retain full copyright for works published.

Submissions must not exceed 3 poems or 360 lines. Do not double-space unless the formatting of
the poem intentionally uses blank spaces between every line.

Submissions must not exceed 6,000 words for a single piece OR one to three shorter pieces of up
to 750 words each. Double-space and indent the first line of new paragraphs. Please specify at
the top of the first page the number of words in the piece.

Submissions of an excerpt from a play must not exceed 6,000 words and may be single spaced.

Submissions of translated creative work (i.e. short stories or poetry) must follow the guidelines
of the genre of the work. A permissions letter from the copyright holder (usually the author or
the original-language publisher) may be required to publish work in translation.

In lieu of submissions of visual art, please query by email with a link to your online portfolio or a
website where your artwork may be viewed.