Micromance Magazine is a Substack based publication focused on publishing “flash” Romance. Which is to say that they publish only stories firmly rooted in the Romance genre that are of varying lengths, but all under 1,200 words. They also publish Romance poetry. If you do not write Romance this is not the right literary journal for you, but because so few literary journals focus on Romance as a genre, it’s great to have one out there that does.
They have over 1,000 subscribers on Substack. They are based out of Cookeville, Tn. Micromance Magazine is open to submissions year round, and they try to respond to submissions within 30 days.
They are open to submissions of Sweet Nothings which are exactly 100-word stories, not including the titles. They say “stories must be stories, not prose poetry. Think of it as capturing a small moment in time with a start, middle and ending.” They also are open to Quickies, which is flash fiction between 101 and 500 words, and Short & Sweet, flash fiction between 500-1200 words. They are open to poetry of any length, but without special formatting, and they only consider one poem at a time.
You can read recent work that they have published here.
Micromance Magazine has very specific additional guidelines that should all be read and followed before submitting. Please only submit your work to them if you feel like it is a good fit. They do not allow AI generated submissions, erotica, or simultaneous submissions. If you fail to follow their guidelines you will be rejected automatically. All submissions must be made by email.
Their terms and conditions are mostly standard but go a little beyond that. They say “By having your story/poem accepted to, and published by, Micromance Magazine, you are granting us first publication and non-exclusive rights, but you, the writer, still own your work. The copyright always remains with the author. First publication rights grant us a 60-day period from date of publication wherein the work is not published elsewhere. Non-Exclusive rights allow us to publish your wonderful work on our online platforms, social media channels, audio, digital, and/or print publications, promotional materials (audio, digital, and/or print), and archives to help further promote your work. If later published elsewhere, we ask you to please give credit to Micromance Magazine as the source of first publication.”
The part that stands out is “Non-Exclusive rights allow us to publish your wonderful work on our online platforms, social media channels, audio, digital, and/or print publications, promotional materials (audio, digital, and/or print), and archives to help further promote your work”. This is a little unusual, but not totally unresonable. If you are not comfortable with this, do not submit. Their other right requests are very standard.
They also run the KissMet Quarterly which is not currently open to submissions, often reads for themed issues, and nominates for the Pushcart Prize.
They’re also accepting fiction for two themed MM romance anthologies.
To learn more about submitting to Micromance Magazine, please go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2025 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.
