Inkwell Literary Magazine is proud to announce that we will begin accepting submissions from current Bob Jones University students. Our current submissions guidelines are below, as well as our editing and copyright policies. As a collaboration of university students, we are not able to pay our guest contributors.

Who can submit?

  • Students currently enrolled at Bob Jones University
  • Alumni of Bob Jones University
  • Faculty and staff currently employed by Bob Jones University

What can I submit?

  • Anything in our three content divisions: short story, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Please do not submit artwork, comics, drama scripts, or flash fiction. We hope to perhaps accept such pieces in future but are again limited by our staff size at present.
  • Anything that fits in our current literary theme. Check our news page to find the theme for our current issue.
  • Anything that has not been previously published. This does not include work done for writing classes or published on private blogs. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but we do ask that you let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere first.
  • Anything in accordance with the BJU Objectionable Elements policy; this means no profanity, erotica, or glorification of sin or practices inconsistent with a Christian worldview.

How do I submit?

  • Send us your best, most polished piece that fits our literary theme. Feel free to apply that in any way you wish. The theme will be a single word, which does not have to be in the work itself, only the concept.
  • Please make sure your piece meets our word count guidelines according to the category of your submission.

- Short Story: 1,500 to 4,500 words

- Poetry: A maximum of 40 lines. Haiku are only accepted in cohesive sets of three or more

- Creative Nonfiction: 500 to 2,500 words

  • Send your piece as a Word document or PDF to inkwelleditorinchief@gmail.com. Please include your name, category of submission, and the title of your work in the subject line of your email. We can only accept email submissions at this time.
  • If your piece is accepted for publication, the appropriate division editor will contact you to work with you on your piece before publication.

Copyright Policy

Inkwell Literary Magazine, as an online journal, requests exclusive world rights of publication in the English language for one month, after which time all rights revert to the author. Authors retain copyright of their work and are free to publish elsewhere, after the piece has been published for one month on the Inkwell Literary Magazine website. We request that any future publication of a piece written by staff or submitted be marked as appearing first in Inkwell Literary Magazine.

Editing Policy

Upon having your work accepted for publication by Inkwell Literary Magazine, our editors will work with you to polish your piece before publication. Our policy is to retain as much of the artist's original work as possible while helping you to refine it. This includes copy editing to catch typographical errors, grammatical mistakes, etc. While our editors will contact you for approval on revisions, Inkwell reserves the right to make changes up until the time of publication.