Submissions

Submissions for the 2024 edition of The Mockingbird are now open! They will close on October 15, 2023.

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Entry Requirements and Format: Students may enter previously unpublished works in as many categories as they wish, but they must not submit more than the permitted number per genre.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 self-contained or portions of longer works. 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.

The 2024 edition of The Mockingbird aims to amplify the voices of transgender students and strongly encourages the voices of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, and female students.

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; we will pull such works from consideration.

The annual entry deadline is October 15.

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, email address, mailing address, phone number, major, and class standing (freshman, sophomore, etc.). Also list the title of each submission and its category (fiction, poetry, etc.). Do not place the submission in the body of the email; instead, submit the submission file as attachments in .doc, .docx, .odt or .rtf format. Each work should have its own document file. The first page of each file must be a cover page. This page should have your name, E number, phone number, email and title of work. Place your E number and the title of the work at the top of each page of the submisssion. Do not place your name within the submissions except on the title page of each separate piece. 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.