RUBY is a bi-annual literary magazine and press that publishes short-form food narratives that strive for voice, artistry, and character. We want work that grabs us and doesn’t let us go—fierce prose we wish we had written. Send us your literary, genre-nonconforming, experimental, hybrid, surprising, tender, joy-filled, and painful words. Food narratives are vulnerable narratives, stories of belonging, identity, justice, disparities, and community. Food is biography. Our experiences with food almost immediately become storied.
Submission Guidelines
RUBY reads submissions for its literary magazine twice during the year from March 1 to April 30 and from October 1 to November 30.
Submissions are free.
RUBY reviews submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, and hybrid works up to 1,000 words. We do not consider unsolicited, previously published work.
All previously unpublished submissions should appear in English.
Translations are welcome and should be accompanied by a copy of the original, previously unpublished text along with a statement certifying permission to publish from the translation rights holder.
Please submit to one genre per reading period.
If you choose to submit flash narratives for consideration, you may send up to three pieces in a single document.
We look forward to reading your work and thank you for sending it to us.
Our experiences with food almost immediately become storied in narrative. Randall Kenan, in his talk about the character of the yam in The Invisible Man to the 2018 Southern Foodways Symposium on food and literature, shared:
“For me, the hallmark of food in literature, raised to the level of art, is food interacting with character. Food as character. Food doing stuff. Food being stuff. Just as it happens with our flesh and blood, our mouths and our bellies and our memories. The best writers know that food is identity. Food is alive. Food is us.”
How to Submit
We are honored to partner with Bartleby Snopes Literary Magazine and Submittable. Click on the button below to submit to the appropriate Ruby category and to donate to Bartleby Snopes. Submissions are free.
Please notify RUBY immediately if your simultaneous submission is accepted for publication elsewhere.
RUBY retains First North American Serial Rights (FNASR) or Serial (Reprint) Rights to publish, produce, reproduce, distribute, and market your work. All other remaining rights revert to the author upon publication. Should you ever wish to remove your work from RUBY‘s archives, please contact us at rubyliterarypress [at] gmail [dot] com
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