Room publishes original fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art by folks of marginalized genders, including but not limited to women (cisgender and transgender),  transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit, and we don’t want writers to feel restricted by gender or genre labels, so if you are unsure if your work is a fit for Room, please get in touch.

Reading Periods

We have four calls for submissions/year: two themed and two un-themed. To stay up to date on our reading periods and themes, subscribe to our newsletter. We also run four contests/year which have separate dates and guidelines. Go to our contest page to learn more.

Submittable

  • Submit your work through Submittable. We do not accept submissions via mail.
  • Submit only work that has not been previously published (in print or online).
  • We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another magazine accepts your work for publication, please advise us and withdraw your piece immediately.
  • We do not charge for submissions, with the exception of our annual contests, which also come with a one-year print subscription.
  • Fiction and creative non-fiction: up to 3500 words, double spaced.
  • Poetry: up to 5 poems, submitted in a single doc file, with each poem starting on a new page.
  • Submit all work in 12-point font, Times New Roman preferred. submit

Payment

  • We pay issue contributors upon publication. We pay $50 CAD per page (up to a maximum of $200) + 2 copies of the issue in which your work appears + a 1 year print subscription to Room
  • We pay $250 for cover art + 2 copies of the issue in which your work appears + a 1 year print subscription to Room
  • We pay reviewers and web contributors a flat rate of $75. 
  • Room purchases first North American Serial Rights and digital rights. Copyright reverts back to author after publication

Rejections? Response Times?

  • We receive over 4,000 submissions each year and can only publish approximately 80-100 pieces. So send your absolutely best piece(s) of work.
  • DID YOU KNOW: Each issue of Room is edited by a different editorial team. Each time you submit to Room, you will be read by different readers and editors with different editorial tastes and preferences.
  • We do not publish the same writer more than twice a year, and never in consecutive issues.
  • Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)
  • We respond to all submissions by email. Our average response time is between two weeks and six months. (A Room issue from planning to printing takes 9 months!) If you haven’t heard from us by six months, please contact us.
  • If you are using Hotmail or Gmail, please be sure to designate Room as an approved sender to prevent our response being caught up in your spam filters.

Book Reviews

We review fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, published by smaller Canadian publishers, in an effort to suggest intriguing and original new work for our readers. For funding reasons, we have to fill these pages with “Canadian” content; interested book reviewers who were born or reside in Canada can send their pitches to reviews@roommagazine.com.

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