Guidelines

Submit only previously unpublished works.

Stories or essays should be typed, double-spaced, and paginated, with your name, address, and phone number on the first page, title on subsequent pages.

Poems (one to five per submission) should be typed with your name, address, and phone number on the first page of each.

We are unable to read entire manuscripts, novellas, of submissions of more than one story (roughly 7,000 words) at a time.

Please do not submit material to the magazine electronically.

Send submissions addressed to Fiction Editor, Nonfiction Editor, or Poetry Editor. Enclose a SASE with your submission and with any subsequent inquiries. Also include with your submission a cover letter listing previous places of publication, if any.

Response time is typically 4-6 months. Please do not send multiple submissions in a single genre. We will read only one submission per author at a given time.

Manuscripts received between May 1st and August 15th will be returned unread.

Payment for work accepted by the journal may vary, but is typically $50 per poem, and $100 per short story or essay.

Contests

Poetry, Short Story, & Nonfiction Prizes

Guidelines:

Prize is $1,000 in each genre [Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction]
and publication in Gulf Coast.

Submit one previously unpublished story or essay (25 pp max) or up to five previously unpublished poems (10 pp max). Indicate genre on outer envelope. Name and address should appear on cover letter ONLY. Manuscripts will not be returned. Include SASE for results.

Entries in more than one genre and multiple entries in a single genre are allowed, but each entry must be accompanied by a reading fee.

Reading Fee: $15 reading fee includes one-year subscription. Please make checks payable to Gulf Coast.

Postmark Deadline: March 15, 2006

Policies: We make every reasonable effort to ensure that manuscripts are judged fairly. For this reason, names should not appear anywhere on manuscripts. Friends and former students of a judge are ineligible in that genre. Graduates of the University of Houston Creative Writing Program are ineligible. Genre editors who serve as preliminary readers are instructed to recuse themselves from deliberations on any piece they recognize.