Whiskey Island Review is a non-profit literary magazine that has been published by students of Cleveland State University for over 30 years. They accept original poetry, prose, and art submissions during two reading periods. They publish two issues a year. They are established, respected, and produce wonderful print issues.
Whiskey Island Review accepts less than 5% of the work submitted to them each year. It takes them around 4 months to get back to each submission and occasionally you will have to wait up to a year. Most journals associated with academia have at least this long a wait time because the editors are not only editors they are also students.
Whiskey Island Review just re-opened to submissions on January 15th and they will be open till August 21st. Each issue only contains around twenty pieces of writing, which is one of the reasons the competition is so stiff. They allow simultaneous submissions but expect to be notified if your work is accepted elsewhere.
The editors are particularly interested in plot within poetry and prose. They also lean towards writing that is dark and quirky. You cannot read any of the work online, so the editors encourage you to buy a sample back issue for 4 dollars.
Whiskey Island accepts all submissions through the submission manager Submittable. To learn more, visit their submission page here: http://whiskeyislandmagazine.com/submit/.
