Submissions for the 2027 edition of The Mockingbird open from August 24-October 15, 2026.
Eligibility: The Mockingbird is East Tennessee State University's award-winning literary publication. All currently enrolled ETSU students are eligible to submit to The Mockingbird, regardless of major.
Entry Requirements and Format: Students may enter previously unpublished works in as many categories as they wish, but they must not submit more than the permitted number per genre. The Mockingbird practices blind submission. There is no fee for submission.
- Poetry: Students may submit up to five poems per academic year. Individual poems should not exceed two (2) single-spaced pages in length.
- Fiction: Students may submit up to two pieces of fiction per academic year. These may be short stories or self-contained scenes from longer works. Fiction submissions should not exceed 5,000 words.
- Non-fiction prose: Students may submit up to two pieces of creative non-fiction prose per academic year. These pieces may be portions of longer works if they are self-contained. Non-fiction prose submissions should not exceed 5,000 words.
- Drama: Students may submit up to two pieces of drama. These may be short pieces or self-contained scenes from longer works. Drama submissions should not exceed 5,000 words, including stage directions and related content.
Authors must title their own works (we will not accept untitled entries). While we respect an author's choice to publish under a pen name, we must have official ETSU identification to publish a person's work.
While we discourage simultaneous submission, we expect authors to notify us should submitted works be accepted elsewhere, which will withdraw works from consideration.
Electronic Submissions: Electronic submissions are preferred and accepted via email at mockingbird@etsu.edu. The body of the email must contain the submitter's name, E number, phone number, the title of each submission, and its genre (fiction, poetry, etc.). Do not paste the submission into the body of the email; instead, attach the submission file or files in .doc, .docx, .odt or .rtf format. Each work should have its own document file. This file should be paginated and include your E number and title of work at the top of each page of the submission. (See template for an example.) To protect blind submissions, do not place your name within the submitted file. We will not consider submissions that do not follow the submission guidelines.
Residual Rights: The Mockingbird reserves the following rights pertaining to publishing material:
- Aside from print publication, The Mockingbird reserves the rights to publish representational segments of all written work on our website or on our Facebook page.
- The Mockingbird reserves the rights to republish material in future anthologies, collections, or solicitations.
- The Mockingbird returns other publishing rights to the creators with the stipulations that subsequent publications will note that The Mockingbird has been the first publisher of the material.