Sponge is looking for original science fiction and speculative fiction from New Zealand and Pacific writers. This means that (for now) you can only submit to Sponge if you are a citizen of New Zealand or the Pacific, or if you are a resident of this area. If you are unsure whether this means you, please look at the map at the bottom of this page.
Submissions
You can submit to Sponge by filling out the submission form on this page. Submissions must be unpublished, but can be simultaneous (you can submit the story to other journals/magazines at the same time). Please limit your submissions to a maximum of three pieces at a time.
By submitting you are giving permission to us to publish your story, but the intellectual property and copyright remains with you. If you do at some point want to remove your story from the website (before or after acceptance and publishing) we would be happy to discuss this with you.
The deadline for submissions to Issue One is 28 Feb 2017.
Unfortunately there is currently no payment for work in Sponge, although this is something we plan to move towards in future. Donations to this cause (particularly in the magnitude of a million) are very welcome!
At the moment Sponge is looking for:
- Poetry of up to a page in length
- Short stories from 1500 – 5000 words
- Non-fiction reviews of published New Zealand and Pacific Sci-Fi of up to 600 words
- Artworks which could be used for our cover (e.g portrait, colourful, loosly related to science fiction)
Formating
We are not picky about how you format your submission as long as it is clear and easy to read. To us this means:
- Left aligned text
- A normal font like Times New Roman (or Courier if you prefer monospaced)
- Consistent punctuation
And that’s it!
You may submit you story as a doc, docx, txt, or rdf file (basically anything that is editable). If you are submitting an artwork for our cover, please send through a high-quality png or jpeg file (at least 1000 pixels on its widest length and 300dpi)
Content
At Sponge we are pretty flexible about what we consider a science fiction or speculative fiction story. It’s not about what you do or do not put in your story, but the attitude you bring to your writing. We want to publish stories that are quirky and different, that play with form and push the boundaries of science fiction. Most importantly, we want to publish stories that say something about what it means to live in the Pacific and how our culture, society, and environments shapes the stories we tell.
If you are not sure whether your story fits this criteria, send it to us anyway! We endeavor to give as much feedback as we can to those who submit to us.