Submission Guidelines

Porter House Review seeks previously unpublished, original works. We are dedicated to providing financial compensation for any and all creative works accepted for publication. Work must be previously unpublished in print or online, and, if accepted, must not be published anywhere else before it is published in Porter House Review. Simultaneous submissions are accepted provided the writer immediately withdraw their work if it is accepted for publication elsewhere. We typically respond to submissions between two and six months.

Note: We do not accept unsolicited submissions from current Texas State University students, faculty, or staff. Alumni are welcome to submit if and only if three or more years have passed since their graduation.

Reading Period: We are currently open for our Editor’s Prize Contest in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry only. Work submitted outside our reading period or to the incorrect genre will go unread. Please send only one submission per reading period.

Submission Fee: PHR charges a $3 submission fee for regular submissions to cover the annual cost of Submittable and pay all of our contributors. The submission fee for our annual contest may be higher. Until we are able to pay for Reviews and Field Notes publications, there will be no submission fees for these categories.

Please submit via our submission manager.

Fiction

Our review seeks to publish fiction that is emotionally affecting, haunting, bizarre, and in firm control of the machinations of storytelling (e.g. character, scene, plot, and momentum). We welcome both traditional short stories, flash fiction, and other hybrid forms.

Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and not exceed 5,000 words. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Nonfiction

We publish nonfiction that involves discovery for the reader and the writer, creating a dynamic of mutual construction through literary dialogue. Personal essays, creative nonfiction flash, memoir, and literary reportage are all welcome.

Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and not exceed 4,000 words. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Poetry

We seek poetic works that capture experience by reinvigorating the language of the everyday, or surprising readers with novel, rarefied text. We are particularly interested in poetry that champions inventive forms and content.

Submissions should be typed, paginated, and not exceed five poems. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Flash

In flash fiction and nonfiction, we’re looking for all the emotional impact of a 20-page narrative in 1,000 words or less. Editors read for narrative flash that has beginnings, middles, and endings, as well as sentences that contain entire worlds.

Submissions should be typed, paginated, and not exceed three pieces of flash that are each 1,000 words or less. Include your name, mailing address, and email address on the first page of your manuscript.

Visual Art

We seek to showcase artwork of all forms and mediums, including illustrations, paintings, sculpture, photography, graphic and digital works, and more.

We accept JPEG files and prefer landscape, high-resolution images. Please do not submit more than 5 works at a time.

At the moment, we can offer $25 per accepted piece.

Reviews