Lake Effect is a publication of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. They publish one print issue per year. They are a non-paying market but do offer two contributor copies to authors whose work is accepted. They publish poetry, fiction, and non fiction. They have a very low acceptance rate.
Even though they are a print publication you can get a feel for what they publish by viewing their most recent issue here. In every genre category at least two pieces are shared. It’s easy from viewing the full list of authors and titles, that they publish mostly poetry. They try to respond to most submissions within a week, even though they warn on their website that it can be up to four months.
You must submit brand new work, and all work must be submitted through their Submittable account, or by post.
They ask that every page of your submission include your last name and the story title in the header. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. All rights revert to the author upon publication.
You can read the full guidelines here and here. Please read them carefully before submitting.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2026 Guide to Manuscript Publishers. She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
