Mud Season Review
Website: https://mudseasonreview.com/
Submission Guidelines: https://mudseasonreview.com/submit/
Submission Portal: https://mudseasonreview.submittable.com/submit
About Mud Season Review
Mud Season Review is an online literary and visual-art journal produced by the nonprofit Burlington Writers Workshop. The journal looks for carefully developed work that reveals something meaningful about human experience while also displaying memorable craft. It welcomes different backgrounds, perspectives, styles, and subjects rather than organizing every issue around a single theme.
Each issue features fiction, creative nonfiction, a poetry portfolio, and visual art. Contributor interviews and supplemental features give readers additional insight into the artists and their creative processes.
Genres
Literary fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, narrative essays, poetry portfolios, painting, photography, drawing, printmaking, animation, collage, sculpture, mixed media, and other visual art.
Reading Period and Current Status
Open October 1 through October 31, 2026. Individual genres may close before October 31 if submission volume becomes too high.
Submission Guidelines and Limits
Fiction writers may submit one story up to 6,000 words. Flash-fiction submissions should contain two or three pieces. Creative nonfiction writers may submit one piece up to 6,000 words. Poets should send three to five poems totaling no more than ten pages in a single file. Artists may submit one to six images, preferably JPG files at a minimum of 300 dpi.
Include a brief biography of no more than 50 words and provide email and mailing addresses. Prose should be double-spaced in a standard 12-point font. Do not submit PDFs.
Mud Season Review does not accept previously published work, including material posted on personal websites, blogs, Substack, Reddit, or social media. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but multiple active submissions are not. The journal does not currently accept translations. Predominantly AI-generated work is ineligible.
Submission Method, Fees, and Payment
Submit through Submittable only. Standard submissions are free; optional $3 tip-jar categories receive no preference. Paid feedback services are separate and are not considered for publication.
Contributors whose work appears in regular issues receive $50. Artists whose work accompanies writing and poets appearing in The Take receive $15. The usual response goal is two months.
Frequency: Quarterly main issues, with supplemental online features
Founded: 2014
Location: Burlington, Vermont
Last Updated: October 7, 2026
The current EveryWriter entry still says Mud Season Review reads year-round, accepts 7,000-word prose, and does not pay; all three points now require correction.
