*****Subs Closed*****
The Flying Saucer Poetry Review is an online literary journal devoted exclusively to poetry and artwork about the UFO phenomenon published annually. We are looking for intriguing and enthralling writing and art that presents and attempts to process the seemingly inexplicable and leaves you unsure of what just happened, much like the UFO phenomenon itself. Unbounded creativity in the exploration and treatment of this subject matter is highly prized.
Response Time
We will respond to all submissions — but in the tradition of “T. Oh Come On Slow One” (a science fiction trivia gauntlet has just been thrown), we may take longer than you would like, depending on how many submissions we have received.
You will be glad to know that we automatically acknowledge receipt of all work submitted to us as we receive it so that you do not wonder if it has been lost in cyberspace somewhere and so that you can easily keep track of when you submitted your work to us.
All of that being said and with no promises being made, we will endeavor to contact you in three months as to whether your work has been accepted or declined.
If you have not heard from us in this time period, use the Contact Us form in the About Us dropdown menu to rouse us from our literary stupor, deep in our cups. Be sure to include the title of your work and the name of this Review to assist us in this process.
Fees
No submission/entry fees, reading fees, or fees of any other kind are charged for submitting your work to this publication.
Payment
We do not offer payment.
Rights
1) Starship Sloane Publishing Company, Inc. requires First Serial Rights, meaning that it has been granted the right to be the first to publish your work online, digitally, or in print.
2) Starship Sloane Publishing Company, Inc. requires Electronic Rights, meaning that it has been granted the right to publish, distribute, archive and store your work, its content, in any and all electronic formats, media, and capacities; retaining the right to reprint the content of its publications (webzine, emagazine, ebook, and print) in any potential forthcoming features, specials, anthologies and the like, whether online, digitally, or in print; and retaining the right to reprint content from its publications (webzine, emagazine, ebook, and print) on any and all of its websites and social media platforms, including for promotional purposes, site spinoffs, and so forth, with proper attribution.
Submission of Unpublished Work
We accept submission of your original, unpublished work. We are not accepting work that has previously appeared in publication or that has already been selected by another publisher to appear in publication. Note: Self-published work is fine to submit.
Simultaneous Submissions
We accept simultaneous submissions but please let us know right away if your work is accepted elsewhere.
Submission Frequency & Resubmission Policy
You may submit a batch of up to five poems and one image of artwork, exactly ONE time per submission period/publication cycle of The Flying Saucer Poetry Review. That’s the limit, even if you did not submit the maximum of five poems allowed in that batch. If you submit another batch of work in the same category after having already submitted during that submission period it will not be reviewed. Asynchronous submission of work to each of the categories is fine.
You may submit new work during each new submission period. If your work has been declined during a previous submission period, please do not submit that work to us again unless significant and meaningful revision has been done. In some very, very rare cases, we may provide editorial feedback when we think that your work is very, very close to being right for publication in the Review.
Closing a Submission Period
Currently, the determination to close a submission period is contingent upon the quantity and quality of the submissions we receive. Ultimately, submission periods will end absolutely no later than one month prior to publication of the Review; or earlier if the determination is made to do so.
Notification in the submission portals will be posted when the submission period has been closed.
UFO Poetry Submission Guidelines
Be sure to have read the About page for The Flying Saucer Poetry Review to best understand the Geist of this literary journal and what we’re looking for.
The Flying Saucer Poetry Review accepts every form of poetry in existence, even when it rhymes — as long as the theme of your poetry involves the UFO phenomenon! UFO haiku? Absolutely (we recognize that the argument could be made that UFO haiku is SciFaiku but we expressly want UFO-centric haiku submitted here, all other science fiction haiku should be submitted to our literary journal, The Starlight SciFaiku Review)! UFO fabulist poetry? Of course! UFO free verse? Yes! UFO pastoral poetry (think, idyllic countryside living intruded upon by UFOs)? Most certainly! You get the idea. Be as wildly experimental as you please, no specific formatting guidelines, poetic or stylistic form, device, element or particular aesthetic is required nor requested — as long as the flavor is unabashedly UFO-centric. The one exception here being poetry that is expressly written and formatted to create some sort of shape or image on the page, like a heart or a dove…or a UFO — please do not submit such work to us [it actually makes the editor queasy]. One other caveat, we are not looking for epic UFO poetry on the scale of the ancient Indian Mahabharata that comes in at something like 1.8 million words. So, although we are not officially providing a word limit for UFO poetry here, just know that if it will use up large quantities of the world’s available digital storage space and remaining forests to produce, we’ll likely decline it.
Batch Limit
You may submit up to five UFO poems. These should be submitted in one batch.
Standard Manuscript Format (short version for those longer in the literary tooth)
Please submit your work using industry standard manuscript formatting but briefly peruse our requirements below. Thank you.
Standard Manuscript Format (long version with some insight for those shorter in the literary tooth)
Navigating the sometimes mystifying world of literary submissions requires some patience and a work ethic. If you’re very new to all of this, you may not know that there is a standard manuscript format for this industry or that it varies a little from source to source — so it’s not really so standard after all; and of course many editors have their own set of in-house subjectivities. Search “standard manuscript format” if you have never done so and you’ll see what I mean and as you submit your work around, you’ll further see what I mean. So, what is one to do? Here’s the deal, even though variations in the details exist between interpretations of the standard manuscript format, they are all substantively in agreement. An editor is unlikely to toss your manuscript if you were to use Courier instead of Times New Roman and vice versa. I will provide one link to propel your learning curve in this matter if you are at that stage in your development as a writer who is just learning the market; but your learning curve is, of course, yours entirely, as it is for all writers. Here’s the link to Bill Shunn’s highly regarded, very helpful and very entertaining guide to properly formatting a variety of manuscripts for submission.
Note: The following guidelines, the description of what kind of poetry we’re looking for and the batch totals are provided again in the submission portals, be sure to double-check these before submitting your work.
Manuscript & File Format Guidelines
Adhering to the industry standard manuscript format is the default, of course, and so it will always suffice. Remember, the idea behind such formatting is to improve the readability of your manuscript by editors, simple as that, it’s not designed to be oppressive. That said, the following guidelines are important to this publishing house, for all work submitted, including short forms. You’ll notice that our guidelines adhere to the standard manuscript format for the most part, but not entirely, as is the case with most publishers — we know what we like, and we’re going for a certain aesthetic.
Adhering to our specific guidelines facilitates ease of digital transferability of your work in addition to the aforementioned readability and aesthetic.
- Left-aligned title (for short form work)
- Byline (skip it, we look at name placement from a whole-page aesthetic)
- Left-aligned text
- One-inch margins all around
- 12-pt font
- Times New Roman
- Black ‘ink’
- Double spaced for long form (not necessary for short form)
- One space after a period, not two
- File must be submitted in an editable format, specifically, a Word Document (.doc).
- ATTENTION: Do not try to submit a Word .docx file (that’s .docX), our web hosting service will not allow a .docx file to be uploaded and so we have blocked that file type in the submission form. This issue has absolutely given us the bivering shitz but there is no working around it. Simply save your .docx file as a .doc file, it’s very quick and easy to do: Open the document > File > Save As > This PC > Location > Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc) > Save (you don’t need to rename it, it creates a new file).
Although not required, please include a short writer/author bio.
UFO Artwork Submission Guidelines
The Flying Saucer Poetry Review is looking for deeply absorbing, oddly hazy artwork that is dreamlike and bedeviling, conveying a sense of wonderment, the details and meaning of which are not clearly nor easily discernible. Think, seeing something that is difficult to understand and process, seen through the cognitive filter of disbelief; seen late at night through bleary, astonished, disbelieving eyes; seen immediately upon waking from a deep sleep, eyes and mind adjusting to a strange new sight, a strange or jolting new stimulus, something extraordinary and ephemeral unexpectedly thrust upon one’s consciousness; or remembering something seen through the fog of sleep or remembered from a dream. Images that seem to defy our parameters of explanation and faculties of reason, that impinge upon our sensibilities of a transparently knowable reality.
We are not looking for photography, line art, or anything with crisp visual definition. Think, pastels, acrylic & oil paints, watercolors and such, materials given to the blurring of defined lines, edges and visual definition, textured, in color, shades of gray, black & white.
Batch Limit
You may submit one image of your artwork.
Artwork File Format Guidelines
We will accept only JPEG/JPG files for artwork uploaded through the submission portal. This format is ideal for presenting artwork on a website without bogging it down and will allow us to produce a quality print version (24-bit RGB) of the online literary journal. No TIFF files, convert them to JPEG. If you’re unsure how to do this, the following link to Adobe provides a good tutorial.
We do not anticipate encountering file size issues.
Please provide a description of the materials used to create your artwork.
Although not required, please include a short artist bio.
Next step, head over to the submission portals!
