Subnivean’s editorial mission is to curate and produce bone-deep, high-caliber literary art that speaks urgently to an evermore-connected international audience.
We publish three to four issues per year: Fall, Winter, Spring, and sometimes Summer.
Subnivean is always grateful for the opportunity to read your work.
We are a small undergraduate staff, so it can take 2-4 months* for us to read carefully through every submission. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, provided that you notify us if another publication beats us to accepting your skilled work.
Please submit an unpublished story or standalone excerpt of 6,000 words or less, in a single document. We do consider English translations, so long as the work has not been published in English before. Due to potential conflicts of interest, Subnivean does not accept general submissions from current SUNY Oswego students.
Subnivean reserves first North American publishing rights; upon publication, rights revert immediately to the author. Due to the impact of COVID-19-related budget cuts upon the SUNY system and our department, we are unable to pay contributors—but we hope you'll still send your work our way now, though we pay only in undying affection and by shouting our contributors' good names from the mountaintops.
We look forward to reading your fiction.
*2025-26 NOTE: Response times may be extended this year. Subnivean is only able to work together for 15 weeks during this academic year. Our heroic new Editor-in-Chief, Albert Abonado, will lead our staff for just one semester, with our longtime editor away on sabbatical throughout AY 2025-26. In short, our workflow will be intense and face major interruptions.
Our staff prioritizes thoroughness and fairness over speed. We work to give every submission a thoughtful read—and hope you'll bear with us as we consider each and every one of the hundreds of submissions before us.
Reading every word with care takes time. We're aware that many outstanding submissions may find other fabulous first homes before we have a chance to offer ours. But rest assured that, as fellow writers, we will give each submitter's manuscript close attention—and if your work is scooped up before we have the opportunity to consider it, we will be cheering you on from the sidelines!
With respect,
Subnivean
Subnivean is always grateful for the opportunity to read your work.
We are a small undergraduate staff, so it can take 2-4 months* for us to read carefully through every submission. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, provided that you notify us if another publication beats us to accepting your skilled work.
Please submit up to six original, unpublished poems, in a single document. We do consider English translations, so long as the work has not been published in English before.
Simultaneous submissions are welcome, provided that you notify us if another publication beats us to accepting your skilled work.
Subnivean reserves first North American publishing rights; upon publication, rights revert immediately to the author. Due to the impact of COVID-19-related budget cuts upon the SUNY system and our department, we are unable to pay contributors—but we hope you'll still send your work our way now, though we pay only in undying affection and by shouting our contributors' good names from the mountaintops.
Due to potential conflicts of interest, Subnivean does not accept general submissions from current SUNY Oswego students.
We look forward to reading your poems.
*2025-26 NOTE: Response times may be extended this year. Subnivean is only able to work together for 15 weeks during this academic year. Our heroic new Editor-in-Chief, Albert Abonado, will lead our staff for just one semester, with our longtime editor away on sabbatical throughout AY 2025-26. In short, our workflow will be intense and face major interruptions.
Our staff prioritizes thoroughness and fairness over speed. We work to give every submission a thoughtful read—and hope you'll bear with us as we consider each and every one of the hundreds of submissions before us.
Reading every word with care takes time. We're aware that many outstanding submissions may find other fabulous first homes before we have a chance to offer ours. But rest assured that, as fellow writers, we will give each submitter's manuscript close attention—and if your work is scooped up before we have the opportunity to consider it, we will be cheering you on from the sidelines!
With respect,
Subnivean
The Subnivean Awards offer writers the chance to have their work blurbed by one of our final judges and published in the May issue. Finalists and winners will be invited to read at a hallmark virtual event that will be promoted to thousands at SUNY and beyond. Winners will also receive $150 each.
Final Judge in Fiction: Megan Mayhew Bergman
Entry fee: $7
Deadline: March 15, 2026
Megan Mayhew-Bergman is the author of three books, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, and How Strange a Season, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and in the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022 list, and was longlisted for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize, The Story Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. She was awarded the Garrett Award for Fiction and the Phil Reed Environmental Writing Award for Journalism, and has written columns on climate change and the natural world for The Guardian and The Paris Review. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011 and 2015, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She serves as Director of Middlebury College’s Creative Writing Program and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.
"I always have a short story in progress. I try not to read rejection letters twice."
― Megan Mayhew-Bergman, 2026 Subnivean Awards Final Judge in Fiction
-
Five finalists' work will be
- forwarded on to the final judges in poetry and fiction
- published in the May issue
Two winners (one in poetry, one in fiction) will receive the above as well as
- a blurb by the appropriate final judge
- a $150 prize
To read judges' blurbs about previous winners' work, click here.
Distilled. Precise. Goosebump-raising and downright amazing. Albert Abonado is looking for poems that shoot from the hip, heart and head. To date, Subnivean has received manuscripts from writers in 60+ countries and every U.S. state, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands: whoever you are, wherever you are, we are always grateful for the opportunity to read your work.
The stories that we are looking for need not fit into a particular mold; rather, we're seeking work that breaks the mold, grinds it into a fine powder, pours it in a pot of water and brings it to a boil, schleps it up a steep mountainside, drizzles it across the snow and lets it cool, there, into the desired shape.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome, provided that you notify us if another publication beats us to accepting your skilled work.
- For the Subnivean Awards in fiction, please submit an original, unpublished story up to 6,000 words. We do consider English translations, so long as the work has not been published in English before. Subnivean reserves first North American publishing rights; upon publication, rights revert immediately to the author while Subnivean requests only that the story live on our website, for an international audience to enjoy, in perpetuity.
- Competition entries are read blind: please do not add identifying information to your manuscript.
- Due to potential conflicts of interest, Subnivean does not accept general submissions from current SUNY Oswego students.
- Technical obstacles? We'll try our best to help you get around them. Please contact us at SubniveanMag@gmail.com.
We look forward to reading your submission, and notifying finalists by March 27, 2026; winners in May.
NOTE: Because Subnivean will never charge readers to access the full contents of our issues, we collect a literary competition fee. All revenue raised from the competition supports the publication's annual budget. In short, when you enter this contest, you are supporting not only literature at large, but the hardworking SUNY undergraduate staff that is nose-to-grindstone right now, bringing you high-caliber content amid the internet's clamoring chaos.
The Subnivean Awards offer writers the chance to have their work blurbed by one of our final judges and published in the May issue. Finalists and winners will be invited to read at a hallmark virtual event that will be promoted to thousands at SUNY and beyond. Winners will also receive $150 each.
Final Judge in Poetry, 2025-26: CHEN CHEN
Entry fee: $7
Deadline: March 15, 2026
Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017), both published by BOA Editions. His latest chapbook is Explodingly Yours (Ghost City Press, 2023). His honors include two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. He lives in Rochester, NY and teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch.
“I hope to one day write something as beautiful as Sailor Moon’s catchphrase, “In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!” Though my abolitionist politics would revise that to: “In the name of the moon, let’s fight for nonpunitive forms of justice!” ― Chen Chen, 2026 Subnivean Awards Final Judge in Poetry
-
Five finalists' work will be
- forwarded on to the final judges in poetry and fiction
- published in the May issue
Two winners (one in poetry, one in fiction) will receive the above as well as
- a blurb by the appropriate final judge
- a $150 prize
To read judges' blurbs about previous winners' work, click here.
Distilled. Precise. Goosebump-raising and downright amazing. Chen Chen is looking for poems that shoot from the hip, heart and head. To date, Subnivean has received manuscripts from writers in 60+ countries and every U.S. state, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands: whoever you are, wherever you are, we are always grateful for the opportunity to read your work.
The poems that we are looking for need not fit into a particular mold; rather, we're seeking work that breaks the mold, grinds it into a fine powder, pours it in a pot of water and brings it to a boil, schleps it up a steep mountainside, drizzles it across the snow and lets it cool, there, into the desired shape.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome, provided that you notify us if another publication beats us to accepting your skilled work.
- For the Subnivean Awards in poetry, please submit up to six original, unpublished poems, in a single document. We do consider English translations, so long as the work has not been published in English before. Subnivean reserves first North American publishing rights; upon publication, rights revert immediately to the author while Subnivean requests only that the poems live on our website, for an international audience to enjoy, in perpetuity.
- Competition entries are read blind: please do not add identifying information to your manuscript.
- Due to potential conflicts of interest, Subnivean does not accept submissions from current SUNY Oswego students.
- Technical obstacles? We'll try our best to help you get around them. Please contact us at SubniveanMag@gmail.com.
We look forward to reading your submission, and notifying finalists by March 27, 2026; winners in May.
NOTE: Because Subnivean will never charge readers to access the full contents of our issues, we collect a literary competition fee. All revenue raised from the competition supports the publication's annual budget. In short, when you enter this contest, you are supporting not only literature at large, but the hardworking SUNY undergraduate staff that is nose-to-grindstone right now, bringing you high-caliber content amid the internet's clamoring chaos.
Our deepest gratitude.