Thank you for sharing your work with the San Francisco Quarterly. We’re just getting started, and we plan to stay a while.

Before submitting to SFQ, please don't familiarize yourself with the journal. It's our job to decide which pieces are best for the upcoming issue. We know that submitting is a grind, and we're happy to consider a variety of work as we invent our identity. Plus, it's a new journal, so there aren't any previous issues to read anyway. The stories, poems and cartoons currently featured are just excellent placeholders, stuff we got from our friends to fill out the website.

Still, these thoughts can be a framework for what we might like:

In fiction, we’re looking for:

• Something about someone who hears a strange horn howling somehow always behind them, and goes out looking.

• Stories with strong first sentences, strange dialogue and gritty detail.

• Stories that search for the edge of realism.

• Though there’s no word limit, think of 2,000 to 5,000 words as the sweet spot for now. Longer stories are welcome, they just have to be good.

• For the first issue, we will probably find favor with stories that are set in the Bay Area, and engage with life here. As the journal grows, we’ll cast a wider net. The goal is to eventually win a West Coast audience. For now, we’re local.

• Though anything can be done well, we’re probably less into stories about dudes in World War II, dating doomed by tech dudes, and narrators who punch up or down.

• We’ve an open mind. Surprise us.

In essay:

• Curious narratives that read like fiction but are essays.

• Writing that feels on-location would be fun to see. Where have you been, what have you seen, who have you met?

• We would love to see a profile-piece on an ostensibly unimportant figure. Remember “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” by Gay Talese? Something like that, but about…you pick.

• Personal narratives about the breakdown of family might not be right for us at this time. Maybe we’ll grow into that.

• Food and wine writing are welcome, so long as they are not really about food and wine, like at all. See the featured essay: The Laundromat.

In poetry:

• Something more incendiary than cuddly.

• With a furious, downhill momentum.

• Or something still, and meditative.

• You pick.

Book Reviews:

• Novels and collections new and old are welcome, though we’d prefer the book has a west coast setting, A.D. 2000+

• Interviews with authors are very welcome.

Cartoons:

• Send your rejected New Yorker cartoons, your beloved detritus, the punch lines your parents don’t understand.

A Few More Submission Guidelines:

TOPICS, TONE & SUBJECT
We see ourselves as a new voice joining the long history of letters and literature in Northern California. Though we’ll likely be attracted to stories, poems and art that engage with life here, memorable pieces that show attention to craft will always have a chance. You, and/or your piece, do not need to be connected to the Bay Area. For us, this place is just an orienting setting to culture, art and community.

LENGTH
So long as the words count, there’s no limit on word count.

BIO
Please provide a brief cover letter with your submission. You can summarize your piece in a sentence or two, and share about your writing journey. If you have any prior publications and/or an MFA, let us know, though we’ll be happy to publish folks without these.

FORMATTING
Keep it normal: size twelve and double-spaced, no weird fonts.

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK
Please send us new, original work. We don’t have a lawyer.

A.I.

Should not have been used in the creation of your piece. Our promise to you is: we won’t use AI to make the journal, not even to help with the website.

PAYMENT
Everyone gets paid. Short stories and essays receive $50 at time of publication. Poems, book reviews and cartoons receive $25. We will increase payments as we grow the journal.

WEB/PRINT

We will start out publishing on this website, and hope to be a print journal within a year.

FIRST SERIAL RIGHTS

Grant our journal the exclusive privilege to be the very first venue to publish your work in print or digital format. After publication of the issue featuring your piece, these rights immediately revert back to you, the author. Then, you’ll retain full ownership of your work and are free to distribute it elsewhere. We kindly ask that any future publications credit this journal as the original place of print. Thanks.

The $3 submission fee will grow the budget to make print possible.

THANK YOU for helping us build this. Really, thanks.

Click Here to Submit. We use Subfolio.