Bad Lineage publishes poetry, essays, interviews, visual art, and fiction, short and long. All submissions must be in English and previously unpublished. We publish translations into English, in any of the above genres, provided that the translator acquires publishing permission from the author of the original text ahead of submitting the translation. We accept simultaneous submissions. Please contact us as soon as possible if any work you submit is accepted elsewhere while we are reading it. Submissions are free. All contributors receive one print copy of the issue to which they contributed.

We have no minimum or maximum word count requirement for prose, but please indicate the word count clearly in your submission, either in the file itself or in your cover letter. For essays about poetry, we prefer close reading be incorporated. If sending poetry, you can submit up to five poems of any length. Please send poems in a single file, with each new poem beginning on a new page. Use the submission form below. We ask that you to provide basic contact information, an austere cover letter (brief bio optional), and the file containing your work. PDF only. All submissions will receive a response within eight weeks. If you haven’t heard from us after eight weeks, feel free to reach out. 

Note: By submitting your work to Bad Lineage, you affirm that the submission is your own original, unpublished work. Upon acceptance, Bad Lineage acquires First North American Serial Rights (for our physical print edition) and First World Electronic Serial Rights (for our online edition and digital archives). We also request the non-exclusive right to keep your work archived on our website and available in our digital/print back-issues indefinitely. All other rights revert immediately back to the author upon publication. If your work is later reprinted in a book, chapbook, or anthology, we kindly ask that you acknowledge Bad Lineage as the site of first publication.

Thank you for considering Bad Lineage as a home for your work!