Submission Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in Callaloo and for the opportunity to review your work.

Callaloo is a journal devoted to creative work by and critical studies of the work of African Americans and peoples of African descent throughout the African Diaspora. We accept original submissions of scholarly articles, book reviews, interviews, nonfiction essays, short fiction, poetry, and visual art. Studies of life and culture in the Black world are also published regularly in Callaloo, as is wide-ranging cultural criticism. Callaloo is a quarterly journal. We accept submissions through Submittable during our open reading period.

General Submissions Reading Period:

General submissions are now open.

General submissions are open from September 1, 2025 - May 1, 2026.

Submit your work on Submittable.

Submission Requirements

All manuscripts must be double-spaced (except poetry) and submitted only as a Word document (.doc or .docx). Identifying information, including names of authors, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, should not be included in the manuscript. We suggest that prose manuscripts not exceed 6,000 words, excluding the title page, abstract, and references, although we will consider submissions of up to 10,000 words if the piece truly merits the length. All manuscripts should follow the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing and include a works cited and endnotes, not footnotes. Callaloo's Style Guidelines can be downloaded here.

Poetry submissions are limited to no more than six poems at a time (all in a single document) with a maximum of twelve poems by an author per calendar year. Additional poems (unless requested by an editor) will automatically be declined. 

Prose submissions are limited to one manuscript per submission with a maximum of three submissions by an author each calendar year. Additional prose submissions (unless requested by an editor) will automatically be declined.

Artwork should be submitted in a single PDF file and must include the following information: title of piece, year created, media, dimensions (in inches), location of the piece.

We do not accept any unsolicited material that has been previously published. We discourage simultaneous submissions; if you have submitted your work to other publications, we request that you let us know upon submission, and agree to withdraw the submissions from consideration elsewhere if your work is accepted. 

Please do not send revisions during the time your manuscript is being reviewed; those revisions will not be considered during the review process.  

IMPORTANT NOTE: All submissions made to the journal are considered final drafts. In order to honor our publisher's production schedule, manuscripts accepted for publication in Callaloo must be forwarded to our Production Editor immediately, allowing contributors no time to make revisions. Before submitting your work, please be sure that the manuscript being uploaded is the version you wish to ultimately see in print.

Throughout the calendar year, authors who have submitted manuscripts to Callaloo may track the status of their submissions at any time in our submission management system.

Authors will be contacted after the review process, which takes four to six months.

Submissions are accepted via Submittable