Conte publishes narrative writing of the highest quality on a biannual basis. Writing that displays some degree of familiarity with our journal is likely to attract our attention, so make sure your work has a narrative bent.
In the interest of keeping Conte as fresh and relevant as possible, we will decline to consider previously published work as well as links to blogs and personal websites.
We gladly accept simultaneous submissions, however, provided you state clearly in your cover letter that your work is under consideration elsewhere, and notify us immediately if it is accepted by another publication. Poetry queries and withdrawals should be directed to poetry@conteonline.net, whereas prose queries and withdrawals should be directed to prose@conteonline.net.
Feel free to mention previous publications in your cover letter (though an enumerated list of credits is not necessary), and to share how you heard about Conte. We read in the fall and spring of each year, and do our best to respond within three months.
Finally, we will discard unread all postal submissions, and as of September 2011, we will also discard all email submissions unread now that we are proud users of Submishmash.
Poetry
Submit up to three poems, each of 100 lines or less. A strong sense of voice, the poetic line, and the aural qualities of language are the easiest ways to grab our attention. We are strongly averse to rhyme schemes.Fiction
Submit one piece up to 8,000 words in length. Please query us with an excerpt before submitting longer pieces. We publish short stories, chapter-length excerpts from novels, and novel manuscripts.Nonfiction
Submit one piece up to 8,000 words in length. Please query us with an excerpt before submitting longer pieces. We do not consider academic essays, but are open to travel writing, memoirs, and engaging journalism.Workshop
This is a call for unfinished submissions to be publicly workshopped and critiqued on the Conte front page.Submit up to three poems, each of 100 lines or less. We remain strongly averse to rhyme schemes.
Submit one piece of fiction or creative nonfiction up to 8,000 words in length. We do not consider academic essays, but are open to travel writing, memoirs, and engaging journalism.