AGNI
A literary magazine named after the Vedic god of fire
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Submit to AGNI

Reading periods
Reading periods
9/1 – 12/15 and 1/15 – 5/31
Response time
Response time
Two to four months for online subs
Submission methods
Submission methods
Online portal preferred
Simultaneous submissions
Simultaneous submissions
Accepted
Word limit
Word limit
No hard-and-fast length limit

We look for writing that catches experience before the crusts of habit form—poetry and prose that resist ideas about what a certain kind of writing “should do.” We seek out writers who tell their truths in their own words and convince us as we read that we’ve found something no one else could have written.

When to submit#when-to-submit

Our Subfolio portal is open for two reading periods a year—from September 1st through December 15th (11:59 p.m. Eastern Time), and again from January 15th through May 31st (11:59 p.m. Eastern).

Things to know when submitting#things-to-know-when-submitting

  • Nearly everything we publish is unsolicited.
  • We encourage submissions from writers of all identities, living anywhere, regardless of publication history.
  • We will not consider writing that has already been published in English, whether in a book, magazine, newspaper, or on an app, a website, a social media feed, online video, or a publicly accessible virtual community.
  • We consider only work written in English or translated into English.
  • We require submissions to be the writer’s or translator’s own work, and must be told up front, in your cover letter, if any element was written in collaboration with others or taken from found materials. Please see our separate section on AI use.
  • We are interested in personal essays, think-pieces, memoir, free verse, blank verse, visual poetry, prose poems, shaped or concrete poems, formal or structured poetry, short stories, and short shorts; we do not publish academic essays or purely journalistic writing.
  • We do not publish genre romance, horror, mystery, or science fiction; however, we are open to writing that borrows elements from any of these.
  • We will consider excerpts if they read as if they were meant to stand alone.
  • We have no word limits, though space is at a premium and length sometimes affects our decisions.
  • You can familiarize yourself with the magazine by ordering a recent print issue or perusing the writing that appears here at AGNI Online, which includes selected pieces from our decades in print, along with everything we’ve ever published exclusively online. Our Reverb section features essays by writers whose work has appeared previously in AGNI or AGNI Online.
  • Each submission in the main genres—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid—costs $3 when sent through our online portal. (Subfolio will briefly redirect you to Boston University’s secure payment page.) Reading fees help us remunerate the editors who spend time with your work. If the $3 fee poses a barrier, please contact us to request an online-submission fee waiver, or see below for instructions on how to mail your submission.

AI use#ai-use

AGNI is committed to publishing human-powered writing, translation, and visual art. We will not consider work produced, in whole or in part, by a large language model, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. If you’ve developed your idea through exchanges with AI, used a structure proposed by AI, or even incorporated a phrase composed by AI, please submit to a publisher that expressly welcomes shared human-AI authorship. If you’re convinced you’ve used AI in a way that merits our consideration, please explain in the AI-disclosure box that will appear during the submission process.

Some requests#some-requests

  • Do not ever email your work; we will not read or consider emailed submissions.
  • Please send one story, one essay, or up to five poems at a time, and please submit only once per reading period.
  • Please do not submit revisions of work we’ve already considered.
  • Online submission lets you log in anytime to check status. Please do not query us until four months have passed. We work hard to respond within two, but we’re not always able. Please note that our response time for paper submissions is usually far longer.

Paper submissions#paper-submissions

The best way to send to AGNI—for the quickest reply and for consideration exclusively by masthead editors—is online. Our editors live in several states and always share work before a decision is made.

If you’d still rather avoid AGNI‘s Subfolio portal, please address your envelope to Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, or Nonfiction Editor and mail to:

AGNI Magazine
Boston University
236 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215

There is no fee for work sent on paper. Please note that regular post is fine; there’s no advantage to using a faster or more expensive service.

  • Do not mail your work in the months of June, July, or August.
  • If you want us to reply by mail, please enclose a stamped, addressed envelope (SAE). If the envelope is large enough and you include sufficient postage, we will take reasonable efforts to return the manuscript; otherwise, it will be recycled. If you’d like to be notified by email instead, please include your email address and skip the SAE.
  • Do not send your only copy; we cannot accept responsibility for your manuscript.

How to withdraw#how-to-withdraw

You are welcome to submit the same work to other magazines simultaneously. If any part of your submission is accepted elsewhere, it’s essential to withdraw it from our consideration as soon as possible. ONLINE SUBMITTERS: Log in to your Subfolio account and click “Open” to the right of the submission. On the next screen, click “Withdraw Submission” to fully withdraw, or “Add Comment” to let us know which subset needs to be withdrawn. PAPER SUBMITTERS ONLY: Contact us with a brief withdrawal note.

Payments and rights#payments-and-rights

All submissions are considered for both print and online publication. (Reverb publication is limited to writers whose work has previously appeared in AGNI or AGNI Online.)

We buy first worldwide serial rights and pay $30 per printed (or printed-out) page for accepted prose, and $50 per page for accepted poetry (50% more in each category for translations), up to a maximum of $300. We also give a year’s subscription to AGNI. In the case of print publication, each contributor receives two copies of the issue their work appears in, and we send up to four additional copies to friends or family.

In all cases, copyright remains with the author.

updated August 2026

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