Submissions for Issue 01 · Winter 2026/27 are currently open!
Send us your work – we can’t wait to read it.

Show us what sad girls are made of.

We want the yearning. The obsession. The grief you should have gotten over three years ago. The beautiful bad decision. The desire you’re embarrassed to admit to. The darkness you made beautiful because you had to put it somewhere.

But we’re not looking for sadness for sadness’ sake.

Sad Girl Zine is interested in work that takes the emotional world of the sad girl somewhere new — formally, aesthetically, politically, culturally, or personally. We know the clichés. We love some of them. We want to know what you can do with them.

We don’t preserve the sad girl aesthetic. We evolve it.

Who can submit?

Anyone.

Sad Girl is not a gender, and it isn’t an identity you need to claim in order to belong here. We welcome submissions from writers and artists of all genders, identities, backgrounds, ethnicities and nationalities.

What matters to us is the work and what you do with the emotional and artistic space of the Sad Girl.

What to submit?

Most importantly, we want art that comes from somewhere real. From the core of your soul, if you will.

We welcome experimental and hybrid work, rich language, formal play, and dense, emotionally complex pieces. Surprise us.

If your work contains potentially triggering material, please include a brief content warning in the body of your email.

Poetry: Up to 3 poems per submission.
Micro: Up to 3 pieces, maximum 500 words each.
Prose: Creative nonfiction, short stories, and essays. One piece per submission, maximum 3,000 words.
Visual Art & Photography: Up to 3 pieces per submission.
Translations: We welcome translated poetry, micro and prose. Please submit the translated work according to the guidelines of its respective category and include the original text alongside your translation. Translators are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions or rights to translate and publish the original work. Please credit both the original author and the translator in your submission.

We are especially interested in translations that bring voices, emotional landscapes and interpretations of the Sad Girl from different languages and cultures into conversation with one another.

For written work, Word documents (.doc or .docx) are preferred. Please double-space Micro and Prose submissions. Poetry may retain the formatting required by the poem.

For Visual Art & Photography, please submit high-quality JPG or PNG files. If your work is selected, we may ask you for a higher-resolution version for publication.

Sad Girl Zine is lovingly and carefully curated. Please send us work that you consider finished and revised. That said, an odd typo won’t get a brilliant piece rejected. We care about the work.

How to submit?

Please send your submission to submissions@sadgirlzine.com.

In the subject line, please indicate the category of your submission:

SUBMISSION — POETRY — Your Name
SUBMISSION — MICRO — Your Name
SUBMISSION — PROSE — Your Name
SUBMISSION — VISUAL ART — Your Name
SUBMISSION — POETRY — TRANSLATION — Your Name

Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please let us know as soon as possible if your work is accepted elsewhere. A quick email telling us which piece is no longer available is enough.

We do not consider previously published work. However, work that has only appeared on your personal website, blog, or social media account is fine.

Please include a short third-person bio of approximately 50–80 words in the body of your email, along with a social media handle and/or website where readers can find more of your work. If your submission is accepted, we will confirm with you which information you would like published alongside your work.

There are no submission or reading fees.

At the moment, Sad Girl Zine is unable to pay contributors. We believe artists deserve to be paid, and we hope to change this as the zine evolves and grows. Until then, we want to be transparent about what we can offer.

Submission Window & Response Time

Submissions for Issue 01 · Winter 2026/27 are open from September 11 to November 11, 2026.

We aim to respond to all submissions within two to four weeks after the submission window closes.

Please bear with us if it takes a little longer. Sad Girl Zine is independently run, and every submission will be read and considered with care.

A.I. Policy

We do not consider work that has been generated, in whole or in part, by generative A.I.

Using tools for basic proofreading, e.g. spelling, punctuation, and grammar checks, is fine. The creative work itself must be yours.

Publication Rights

By submitting, you confirm that the work is your own and that you have the right to publish it.

If your work is accepted, Sad Girl Zine requests first serial publication rights for its initial publication in the zine. After publication, all rights revert to you.

We also ask for the non-exclusive right to keep the published work available in our digital archive for as long as the issue remains accessible.

You remain the copyright holder of your work. If the piece is later republished elsewhere, we simply ask that you acknowledge its first publication in Sad Girl Zine.