Remnants are what’s left after something has been broken open. A memory that won’t fade. A photograph folded too many times. A voice you still hear when the room is quiet. Prison rearranges a life, but it rarely erases it completely. Pieces remain.

THE SPECIAL ISSUE

The Yale Literary Magazine is excited to produce a special issue, Remnants, which will feature poetry and stories by incarcerated writers.

We are asking writers who are experiencing incarceration to sit with what survives. The remnants of family…of childhood…of dreams that once felt close enough to touch. The remnants of who they were before the world narrowed. Not just what was lost, but what refuses to disappear.

The special issue will be published in print and online. We are currently open for submissions until April 17, 2026.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We welcome submissions from all writers who are currently or formerly incarcerated.

We seek:

• Poetry (maximum: 5 poems)

• Fiction (maximum: 3 stories)

• Memoir (maximum: 3 essays)

For fiction and memoir submissions, please keep each story below 12,000 words / 25 typed pages /40 handwritten pages.

All submissions should connect to our special issue theme, remnants (outlined above under the “special issue” heading). This theme is intentionally broad. You may touch on this theme as tangentially or as explicitly as you wish.

SUBMISSION LOGISTICS

We accept submissions sent to us through email and through our PO Box.

To email submissions, please send them as PDF or Word Documents to yalelitprisonproject@gmail.com with the Subject: Remnants Submission: Your Genre. (We accept PDF scans of handwritten pages.)

To snail mail submissions, please send typed or handwritten pages to:
Smile Jiang ATTN: Yale Literary Magazine Prison Project
206 Elm St
PO Box 200253
New Haven, CT 06520
Please note that in the case of snail mail, we can’t return submissions, so please send a duplicate copy.

Along with your work, please send a short cover letter that includes: (1) your name; (2) the genre of the work, poetry, fiction, or memoir; (3) your inmate ID, if applicable; (4) your current facility, if applicable; (5) a short third person biography that you’d like us to publish with your work (optional).

We are currently open for submissions until April 17, 2026.

CONTRIBUTOR PAYMENT

We are a paid publication. We offer $60/poem, $75/flash (fiction or memoir below 1,500 words), and $125/story (fiction or memoir between 1,500-12,000 words). These honorariums are competitive with market rates. At this time, we will only offer one honorarium per contributor.

CONNECT

We are excited to connect with anyone who want to work with us on this special issue, and we are excited to answer any questions from writers. No query too small. Please reach out directly to both Co-Lead Editors Alpha Jalloh at alpha.jalloh@yale.edu and Kaya Dierks at kaya.dierks@yale.edu with the Subject: Special Issue Query.