Welcome to the Munster Literature Centre submissions manager

Southword Literary Journal

Southword: New International Writing is a print literary journal published twice a year by the Munster Literature Centre. Southword has published the likes of Medbh McGuckian, Helen Ivory, Haruki Murakami, James Lasdun, Kim Addonizio, Tess Gallagher, Colm Tóibín and Vona Groarke. Our summer issue is composed of prizewinning and shortlisted entries from our Gregory O'Donoghue and Seán O'Faoláin competitions, as well as specially commissioned work. Unsolicited submissions of poetry and short fiction (for our autumn issue) are open as follows:

Unsolicited submissions of poetry and short fiction (for our winter 2024 issue) are open as follows:

POETRY: 1st January ‒ 29th February 2024

FICTION: 1st February ‒ 31st March 2024

Southword pays contributors €50 per poem and €300 per short story. We welcome submissions of up to four poems or one short story (of up to 5000 words) per submission period. If your work has been selected from an unsolicited submission and published in Southword before, we ask that you please don’t submit for one year before submitting again – for example, if you were accepted in the last open submission period (2023) it means you need to skip this one (2024) and wait for the next (2025).

Subscribe or buy individual issues here.

Other opportunities for publications, mentorships, readings and more will appear here periodically throughout the year.

Annual Competitions

Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition (open for entries 1st May to 31st July).

Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition (open for entries 1st June to 31st August).

Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition (open for entries 1st September to 30th November).

Questions/troubleshooting on using Submittable system

E-mail support@submittable.com or visit their help centre.