What We Publish
At 34 Orchard, we like dark, intense pieces that speak to a deeper truth. We’re not genre-specific; we just like scary, disturbing, unsettling, and sad. We like things we can’t put down and things that make us go “wow” when we’ve finished. But our main goal here at 34 Orchard is to publish the stuff we like to read, and you’re not in our heads. So don’t over think it. Just submit.
We are an international journal and welcome submissions from everyone, all over the world. As of our 2025 issues, we have published work from Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, and Wales, specifically), and Uruguay, as well as the United States.
Our submissions window for 2026 is now OPEN!
We are open January 1-10, 2026 for short fiction ONLY (we got so much wonderful poetry from our 2025 window, we are full for 2026). Our submission window closes at 11:59 pm on January 10, 2026.
Word Counts
Short fiction from 1000 to 6000 words
When We Publish
We publish two issues per year, one in the spring (April) and one in the autumn (November). Issues are hosted on this site as PDFs.
Submissions Windows
Our submissions window for both of our issues in 2026 is January 1-January 10, 2026. Please only send submissions between January 1 and January 10, 2026. Submissions received before or after these dates will be deleted unread.
We will only accept submissions for our 2026 issues, therefore, during the first ten days of January. Anything submitted to us outside that timeframe will be deleted unread, and no response will be sent.
How to Submit
Pieces which do not follow guidelines will be rejected unread.
PLEASE SEND FICTION AS AN ATTACHMENT.
We prefer Shunn formatting–it’s a good idea to learn this anyway, since unless a market asks for something highly specific, you can’t go wrong. Above all, please ensure your name is on the actual document. If your name is not on the actual document, we will send you a rejection letter without reading the work. We get many documents without names and contact information, and we can’t consider those–they could get misattributed and/or are at risk of never getting a response. Therefore, if a name isn’t on the actual document(s), we will send out a standard rejection letter.
Here is the link to the format guide:
Document: .doc or .docx. We will not read any other format.
Cover Letter: Please write a real letter–not just a list of information–that includes your name and contact info, the story/poem title, word count, if it’s a simultaneous submission, third person 100 word or fewer bio. Please paste your cover letter into the body of the email. Trigger warnings are not necessary; we publish dark stuff. We’re prepared.
Email Subject Line should read: Submission: “Story Title,” Last Name
Send to 34orchardjournal@gmail.com
Response Time
We’re writers too, so we do our best to process submissions as quickly as possible so that work is free for other opportunities if we decide to pass–however, it could take a few weeks. Writers will hear back from us no later than February 28 for the spring issue and September 15 for the autumn issue.
We do not provide feedback on rejected pieces.
Simultaneous Submissions
Yes, we welcome and encourage them! Just notify us at 34orchardjournal@gmail.com if it’s been accepted elsewhere as soon as you know.
Multiple/Subsequent Submissions
No. We only consider one piece of fiction per writer per submissions window.
If a rejection letter is received, please wait until the following submissions window to submit to us again. We have received up to 2500 submissions in a single window the past, so this rule is in place to ensure opportunity for everyone. Please note that second submissions in the same window from the same writer will not receive a response.
Reprints
No. We don’t accept anything from our open submissions call that has been previously published.
Rights
We buy Exclusive First World Electronic and Archival Rights. That means we are buying the right to publish your piece first online, and ask that we be the only ones to publish it for a period of six months from the date of publication (we DO make exceptions for “best of” and writers publishing in their own collections automatically, and we are open to discussion if there is another reason before the time is up). After that six months is up, the rights revert to you, so you may offer reprint and other rights to other publishers, publish it yourself, or do whatever. Archival Rights means we have the right to keep it available in the issue in which it appears, so as long as we’re up and running, your piece is online. This is standard with most online publications. We will not remove a piece from an issue under any circumstances, so please make sure that you are okay with this before you submit.
If you’d like more information about these rights in depth, you can visit here: https://www.writing-world.com/rights/rights.shtml
Payment
Payment is $50 on signing of the contract. You will need to have a PayPal address to receive payment; we don’t use any other form of internet cash transfer service. If this doesn’t work for you and you are in the U.S., we’re happy to send you a paper check. If you are overseas, please ensure you have a PayPal account. We apologize for the inconvenience, but, again, we don’t work with any other cash transfer service. No exceptions.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact page, or send an email to 34orchardjournal@gmail.com.
Founding Editor: Kristi Petersen Schoonover
Editorial Assistant: Anne Cummings
Yes! We are listed on Duotrope, and you can find our listing here. We encourage everyone to check them out and sign up. Our editor, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, has been using them as a submissions tool since shortly after they started in 2005. https://duotrope.com/
We look forward to reading your work!
Want more insight? Read our interview at Six Questions For … here or by Angelique Fawns at Horror Tree, here!
34 Orchard 