Submissions Guide

Thank you for your interest in submitting your work to the Milwaukee Avenue Messenger. Your submission will be reviewed with kindness and enthusiasm. Please remember we are a small (but mighty!) organization so it may take a while to respond to your submission. We appreciate your patience in this process.

Please send all submissions to milwaukeeavenuemessenger@gmail.com with the the word “submission” in the subject line of your email.

Style and subject

The Milwaukee Avenue Messenger publishes mostly short fiction, poetry, prose, nonfiction, and artwork, but there are no real restrictions as long as the work is your own. For unsolicited submissions, preference will be given to Chicago-area artists who explore subjects and themes pertinent to residents in communities located along the Milwaukee Avenue corridor. But, again, there are no real restrictions.

Formatting

Keep it standard and simple. Please make sure to attach a pdf or .doc to your email rather than pasting your work into the body of the email.

Previously published work

Is generally not what we’re looking for here.

AI policy

We’re not generally keen on writing, artwork, or translations generated with AI because we dig empathy and human creativity. If your work is in any part generated by AI software, you must clearly acknowledge this at the outset of your submission. We understand and appreciate that some interesting creative work is being done that explores and exploits these technologies, but we will only consider such work if it explicitly acknowledges the means by which it was generated.

Author bios

Please include a brief biography of yourself. If your work is chosen for publication and you have not included a bio, we will reach out and ask you to provide one prior to publication. Please try to keep your bio to less than 100 words.

Payment and copyright

We are presently a non-paying publisher but hope to change that soon. The copyright for all published work remains the property of the author or artist.

Inquiries

Send all inquiries to milwaukeeavenuemessenger@gmail.com.