Guidelines
Unless otherwise stated, Island welcomes submissions from Australia, New Zealand and Australians living abroad.
All submissions are via Submittable.
We do not accept work previously published in print or online, including on blogs.
We accept simultaneous submissions; however, if your work is selected for publication elsewhere, please withdraw it from Island Submittable.
Contributor Policy
You do not need to be an Island subscriber to submit or enter any of our prizes. However, we believe that writers ought to be readers of the literary magazines in which their work is published, so for this reason, if your work is published either in print or online, and you not already a subscriber, your total payment will be less the cost of a 4-issue subscription.
For a small not-for-profit literary magazine, this is a necessary step in a long-term strategy to build circulation. This, in turn, will allow us to increase the amount we can afford to pay our writers. For background information on our contributor fee policy, see here.
Payments
Contributor fees are currently:
Fiction and nonfiction for print - 40 cents per word, with a minimum of $600 and a maximum of $1500.
Poetry for print and Island Online - $175 per poem.
Island Online - $600 for short-form fiction, nonfiction and graphic narratives.
All fees are less the cost of a 4-issue subscription if you are not a current subscriber. For background information on this policy see here.
In additional to core funding from Arts Tasmania, 2025 contributor fees have been supplemented by the Australian Government through the Creative Australia its arts funding and advisory body and the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
We continually strive to increase author payment rates through grants and fundraising.
PROCESS
You will receive an automated acknowledgement of receipt of your submission.
All submissions will be read by at least one member of the editorial team.
Once decisions are made, you will be contacted (either via Submittable or direct email) regarding the outcome. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to provide individualised feedback on submissions that are not selected.
The expectation is that the selected works will require little editing. However, any editing involved will be undertaken by Island’s editorial team, in discussion with the author. The author will have final approval of the work.
A licensing agreement will be sent to the author prior to publication (see T&Cs below for further details).
TERMS & CONDITIONS
A licencing agreement outlining the contributor fee and full terms and conditions will be sent to authors prior to publication. Please be aware of the following:
- Copyright remains with the author; but Island requires an exclusive licence for three months from publication. Following the exclusivity period, authors must continue to license the work to Island on a non-exclusive basis. Any further reproduction should publicly acknowledge Island as the original publisher.
- Authors must warrant that their work is an original work, that their work does not infringe any copyright and that they are the sole owner of the copyright in the work. They must also warrant that the work contains nothing obscene, indecent or libellous.
A draft of the full licencing agreement is available on request from admin@islandmag.com.
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR
We are looking for new poems in any form.
ELIGIBILITY
Submissions will be considered from Australian and New Zealand citizens and residents only.
You do not need to be a subscriber to submit. However, we believe that writers ought to be readers of the literary magazines in which their work is published, so for this reason, if your work is published in Island and you are not already a subscriber, your total payment will be less the cost of a 4-issue subscription. For a small not-for-profit literary magazine, this is a necessary step in a long-term strategy. For background information on our fee policy, see here.
TIMELINES & GUIDELINES
Submissions close at 5pm AEST on Monday 31 March.
You may submit a maximum of five poems in text, video or audio formats.
You can submit a combination of the three formats, but please submit all poems in one submission.
If you are submitting more than one poem in text, please submit as one single document. If you are submitting some or all of your poems in video or audio, please submit as separate files.
Submissions are via Submittable only
Acceptable file types for text: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf.
Acceptable files types for audio: flac, m4a, mp3, ogg, wma.
Acceptable files types for video: avi, flv, m4v, mkv, mov, mp4, mpg, wmv.
We do not accept work previously published in print or online, including on blogs
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but please withdraw your poem if it is accepted elsewhere.
PROCESS
You will receive an automated acknowledgement of receipt of your submission. After that, you will generally not hear from the editorial team until after submissions have closed.
After the closing date, we endeavour to provide a response to all submissions asap.
Once decisions are made, you will be contacted (either via Submittable or direct email) regarding the outcome. We are unable to provide individual feedback for submissions not selected.
The expectation is that the selected works will require little editing. However, any editing involved will be undertaken by Island’s Poetry Editor, Kate Middleton, in discussion with the author. The author will have final approval of the work.
CONTRIBUTOR FEES
Island pays $175 per poem*
*Fees are less the cost of a print 4-issue subscription if you are not a current subscriber. For background information on this policy see here.
In addition to core funding from Arts Tasmania, contributor fees are supplemented by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body and the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
We continually strive to increase author payment rates through grants and fundraising.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
A licensing agreement outlining the contributor fee and full terms and conditions will be sent to the author prior to publication; however, please be aware of the following:
Copyright remains with the authors, but writers must give Island exclusive publication rights for the work for three months from publication. Any further reproduction must publicly acknowledge Island as the original publisher.
Writers must guarantee that their work is original, does not plagiarise or infringe the copyright of any other party, and does not breach any other law or ethical principle of publication (e.g. defamation, libel, obscenity).
A draft of the full agreement is available on request from admin@islandmag.com.
Thank you for your interest in publishing with Island!