Art Guidelines

Artist Qualifications​

• High school students (aged 14-18) from anywhere in the world are eligible to submit.
• For the art category, we welcome multiple submissions.

Artwork Guidelines​​

• Submitted artwork will be considered for any of the following categories: (1) Cover Art (which will appear both on the website and in print), and (2) Promotional Art (which will appear on social media, on our website, and in our online workshops).
• Images must be a .PNG or .JPG file.
• Images must be at least 2700 x 1800 pixels. Images with low resolution will not be eligible for cover art.
• Images must have a resolution of at least 300 DPI (dots per inch).
• Portrait orientation (6 x 9 inches or equivalent dimensions) is preferred.
• Polyphony means “many voices,” which you can use as inspiration for your design. You are not limited to that theme, as we are looking for the creativity and imagination of your visual art to be a match for the wide-ranging literary works contained in our annual volume.
• We accept simultaneous submissions but if the piece is accepted elsewhere, please notify us immediately. Only previously unpublished artwork is eligible.
• All submissions must be original and may include drawings, paintings, collages, photographs, or mixed media.

Using Submittable​

• In the submission form, please select "Cover Art" as the genre for your submission.
• Please upload submissions through Submittable. We do not accept email submissions or hard copies via mail.
• Upload only one piece per submission file. To submit more than one piece, make more than one submission file.
• There is no fee to submit.
• We do not provide feedback on cover art submissions. If your piece is accepted for publication, we will notify you at the close of our submission cycle.
• If you are submitting visual art, you give us permission to publish your work as cover art, t-shirt art, or promotional art on Polyphony Lit's platforms as outlined by Polyphony Lit's Copyright Policies.

Latin & Native American Heritage Contest 2024

September 1st - November 30th 2024

Directrices del concurso en español

Regras da Competição em Português

¡Hola! In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Polyphony Lit is hosting a special contest for Latinx submitters. The theme of this year’s contest is “Food and Memory.” 

Latin America is a vibrant mosaic where our indigenous roots mixed with Spanish, Portuguese, and West African influences, yielding a rich tapestry of cultures marked by their music, clothing, and especially food. Take for example, Mexico’s defining staple- tacos. Or Cuba’s delicious ropa vieja, whose origins lie in Spanish Jews. 

We invite you to consider your own experiences with your culture’s cuisine and the memories associated with it. The five scenes are inextricably intertwined with our memory and a familiar flavor or smell can instantly transport us back in time. Perhaps you remember fondly your abuela’s tamales you ate as a child, or the sobremesa you shared with your family after eating a hearty paella. Just like languages, recipes are passed on from generation to generation, along with stories and traditions. Food is the bridge that connects us to our past and each other, as we continue to make the same dishes that our parents, and before them our abuelos, made. 

Identity can exist at the intersection of so many currents. Food is a perfect example of this. So many classics, from tamales to popcorn, were invented by Mesoamericans and other Native Americans thousands of years ago, then more and more layers were added by the subsequent peoples who reclaimed these delicacies. And if you identify with any Indigenous tribe or culture, or perhaps with several, feel free to explore the many facets of identity and food in your writing!

So how did the food of your culture, and the people that made it, shape you? Share with us your reflections and your history.  We take submissions in English, español, y português- so send us your best poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. We can’t wait to see what you submit!

If your piece is written primarily in one of these languages, but also features brief words or phrases written in another language, then we will certainly consider multilingual pieces like this, but please keep in mind that our contest readers will only be able to provide English translations for the languages listed above. For multilingual words and phrases, you are welcome to provide English translations of your own as footnotes or as part of the context in the piece.​

Looking for examples that Polyphony Lit has published already? Then check out Vuelve a Casa by Zanna Vasquez and Petals Seared Into Skin by Luiza Louback.​

Interested in honing your poetry-writing skills for the contest? Then try taking our poetry workshop, Around the World of Poetry in 80 Days. This workshop will help you to brainstorm, draft, and revise poems of your own!

Interested in becoming an editor for Polyphony Lit? Take our editorial training course and join the staff!

Latin & Native American Heritage Contest Guidelines

• Submissions will open on September 1st and will remain open until November 30th or until we reach our submission cap of 200 submissions.
• Please note that this is a separate submission category from Polyphony Lit Volume 20.​ Submissions to Polyphony Lit Volume 20 will receive feedback from the editors, but for the seasonal contests, only the winning submissions will receive feedback from the judge.
• If you have already submitted your work to the Volume 20 category, then please do not send the same submission to the Latin Heritage & Native American Heritage Contest category.
• If you submit to the Latin Heritage & Native American Heritage Contest category first and your work is declined, then you may submit it to the Volume 21 category after the contest is finished.

Writer Qualifications

• High school students who identify as Latinx or Native American are eligible to submit. For ease of reference, we roughly define this as writers of Hispanic, Latinx, or Spanish origin (for example: Mexican or Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Colombian, etc), writers who identify as Central / South America Indigenous Peoples (for example: Amerindian, K’iche’, Yucatec, Miskitos, Quechua, Chibcha, etc), and writers who identify as North American Indigenous Peoples (Eg: Navajo nation, Blackfeet tribe, Native Village, Nome Eskimo Community, First Nations, etc). However, we understand that people of Latin American and Indigenous descent often come from many different backgrounds, so we hope that you will not be limited in any way by these categories.
• We do not accept submissions from editors who currently serve on the staff of Polyphony Lit.
• Works may be written in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If your piece is written primarily in one of these languages, but also features brief words or phrases written in another language, then we will certainly consider multilingual pieces like this, but please keep in mind that our contest readers will only be able to provide English translations for the languages listed above. For multilingual words and phrases, you are welcome to provide English translations of your own as footnotes or as part of the context in the piece.
• Submit a maximum of three pieces.
• If submitting multiple pieces, please upload as separate submissions. Multiple pieces submitted in a single document will be withdrawn, and you will be asked to resubmit your pieces separately.
• We accept simultaneous submissions and work that has been published elsewhere. If submitting previously published work, please send a message in Submittable noting where and when your work has been published, and if it is eligible for republication. If it is accepted for publication elsewhere after submitting to Polyphony Lit, please notify us immediately but do not withdraw your submission if you are still interested in publication at Polyphony Lit. If we accept a previously published submission for publication, we will acknowledge the place of the original publication.
• Previously published pieces are not eligible for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards.

Length

• Poetry must be 80 lines or less.
• Fiction and creative nonfiction must be 1,800 words or less.

Formatting​

• Do not put your name on the piece, as all work is blind juried.
• Submissions longer than one page should have the page number inserted at the top (right or left side) of every page, as it would help our Judge specify the location for their commentary.
• We accept submission in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats.
• We prefer common conventions:                    
  • Color: Black & white
  • Font Size: 12 pt throughout, including titles
  • Font Type: Times or Times New Roman
  • Margins: 1-inch at the top and bottom, and 1.25 inch at the left and right. One space after periods. There should be no extra returns after paragraphs unless you have a meaningful reason for the extra space. 

Using Submittable

• Please upload submissions through Submittable. We do not accept email submissions or hard copies via mail.
• Upload only one piece per submission file; to submit more than one piece, make more than one submission file.
• Submissions for this contest are free.
• There is a submission cap of 200 submissions, so we may close submissions for the contest before the deadline if we receive 200 submissions. We recommend submitting early, to ensure that you do not miss the deadline.

Prize

There will be one winner and two finalists. The winners/finalists will receive:

• Publication in Polyphony Lit Volume 20
• Eligibility for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards
• Editorial feedback from the Contest Judge
• Social media posts announcing the winners
• An honorary emblem next to the published work on the website
• A full scholarship for Polyphony Lit’s "How to be a Literary Editor" course. Upon completion of the course, students will be eligible to join the editorial staff of Polyphony Lit!
• Please note that only the three winners will receive feedback from the Judge.

Additional Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction

At Polyphony Lit, we look for creative nonfiction pieces that are written in the style of short personal memoirs. We are looking for pieces that are informal, flexible in form, and most importantly, personal. Personal discovery is the keystone of a personal essay. Self-revelation, human experiences, humor, and flexibility of form are all aspects that we look for in pieces we publish as creative non-fiction.

• We do not look for op-ed pieces, critical analyses, research papers, or academic essays.
• We would advise reading some samples of our work, in order to understand the material that we publish. Here are some samples of creative nonfiction that we have published:
• Memories of the Boy I Didn't Know
• responses to love
• Holiday in a Burning City

Polyphony Lit Fall Contest 2024:

The theme for this contest is “Chromatic Dreamscapes.” There will be one winner and two finalists. For more details on the contest prize, see below! 

This season, we invite you to explore how color has shaped your environment, language, culture, and creative processes. Take this boat with us to the island of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon. Board a plane to Vinicunca—a mountain in Cusco, Peru. Travel to the Frying Pan Lake, a hot spring in New Zealand. No matter what adventure you take, every landscape, city panorama, and country brings many questions about color. What role does color play in natural phenomena or historical artifacts? What color palettes do you notice in your life? How do color patterns harmonize or disrupt our worldview, sweep across the page, transform into another entity, and move onto another canvas?

Consider the meaning of “chromatic” in music composition. What color does your short story sound like—the rhythm, the texture, the lyrics? Dip your brush into unexplored questions, play with emotion and character, mix and match—what does violet summer look like? A canary winter? Give us monochrome or rainbow. Maybe you’ve derived “chromosomes” out of the word “chromatic.” Don’t be afraid to choreograph writing with “chronology,” “chromatography,” or “chromotherapy”—we want to hear all of your linguistic, scientific, and technological connections to color! Think about how you would dress a poem in an autumn sweater. Add a sprinkle of blue violin strings to a paragraph. Peer into your memories through a kaleidoscope. Don’t forget—you’re the artist, the musician, and the magician here. This is your opportunity to rewrite the universe.

The theme is open to your interpretation; be creative and have fun with it!

Looking for examples that Polyphony Lit has published already? Then check out Migrant by Alisha Wong, The Hindi Word for Prayer by Shreya Khullar, and Holiday in a Burning City by Allyson Ye.

Interested in honing your poetry-writing skills for the contest? Then try taking our poetry workshop, Around the World of Poetry in 80 Days. In this workshop, Polyphony Lit Editor and Teaching Assistant Nicole Itkin explores how writers can use their hometown as a source of inspiration. And there are plenty of other lessons that will help you to brainstorm, draft, and revise poems of your own!

Polyphony Lit Fall Contest Guidelines

• Submissions will open on September 1st and will remain open until October 31st or until we reach our submission cap of 200 submissions.
• Please note that this is a separate submission category from Polyphony Lit Volume 20.​ Submissions that were submitted to Polyphony Lit Volume 20 will receive feedback from the editors, but for the seasonal contests, only the winning submissions will receive feedback from the judge.
• If you have already submitted your work to the Volume 20 category, then please do not send the same submission to the contest category.
• If you submit to the contest category first and your work is declined, then you may submit it to the Volume 21 category after the contest is finished.

Writer Qualifications

• High school students from anywhere in the world are eligible to submit.
• We do not accept submissions from any editors who currently serve on the staff of Polyphony Lit.
• Submit a maximum of three pieces.
• If submitting multiple pieces, please upload as separate submissions. Multiple pieces submitted in a single document will be withdrawn, and you will be asked to resubmit your pieces separately.
• We accept simultaneous submissions and work that has been published elsewhere. If submitting previously published work, please send a message in Submittable noting where and when your work has been published, and if it is eligible for republication. If it is accepted for publication elsewhere after submitting to Polyphony Lit, please notify us immediately but do not withdraw your submission if you are still interested in publication at Polyphony Lit. If we accept a previously published submission for publication, we will acknowledge the place of the original publication.
• Previously published pieces are not eligible for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards

Length

• Poetry must be 80 lines or less.
• Fiction and creative nonfiction must be 1,800 words or less.

Formatting

• Do not put your name on the piece, as all work is blind juried.
• We accept submission in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats.
• We prefer common conventions:     
• Color: Black & white
• Font Size: 12 pt throughout, including titles
• Font Type: Times or Times New Roman
• Margins: 1-inch at the top and bottom, and 1.25 inch at the left and right. One space after periods. There should be no extra returns after paragraphs unless you have a meaningful reason for the extra space.

Using Submittable

• Please upload submissions through Submittable. We do not accept email submissions or hard copies via mail.
• Upload only one piece per submission file; to submit more than one piece, make more than one submission file.
• Submissions for this contest are free.
• There is a submission cap of 200 submissions, so we may close submissions for the contest before the deadline if we receive 200 submissions. We recommend submitting early, to ensure that you do not miss the deadline.

Prize

There will be one winner and two finalists. The winners/finalists will receive:

• Publication in Polyphony Lit Volume 20
• Eligibility for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards (if work is previously unpublished)
• Editorial feedback from the Contest Judge
• Social media posts announcing the winners
• An honorary emblem next to the published work on the website
• A full scholarship for Polyphony Lit’s "How to be a Literary Editor" course. Upon completion of the course, students will be eligible to join the editorial staff of Polyphony Lit!
• Please note that only the three winners will receive feedback from the Judge.​

Additional Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction​

• At Polyphony Lit, we look for creative nonfiction pieces that are written in the style of short personal memoirs. We are looking for pieces that are informal, flexible in form, and most importantly, personal. Personal discovery is the keystone of a personal essay. Self-revelation, human experiences, humor, and flexibility of form are all aspects that we look for in pieces we publish as creative non-fiction.
• We do not look for op-ed pieces, critical analyses, research papers, or academic essays.
• We would advise reading some samples of our work, in order to understand the material that we publish. Here are some samples of creative nonfiction that we have published:
• Memories of the Boy I Didn't Know
• responses to love
• Holiday in a Burning City