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Write for Modern Reformation

MR is happy to consider manuscript submissions for publication. Please visit our about page and familiarize yourself with our web articles prior to submitting. 

We accept submissions for the following publication formats:

Web Essays

MR web essays should be between 1500-3500 words. Please submit manuscripts in Microsoft Word to our editors, with an email summary of the work and a brief personal intro, at: submissions@modernreformation.org.

MR does not accept simultaneous submissions or submissions of previously published content, including online publications. After submitting, please allow four to six weeks for the MR editorial team to evaluate and make a decision. If you have not heard anything by the end of four weeks, you may send a follow up query.

Letters to the Editor

We welcome your letters responding to previously published content. You can find the guidelines regarding these submissions below.

Poetry

Find specific guidelines for poetry submissions below.

Letters to the Editor

MR has always sought to initiate and shape theological conversations. To that end, we welcome your letters responding to the content we’ve published. Please keep letters under four hundred words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Please submit letters, with clear statement of the author and title of the work to which you're responding or with which you're interacting, to letters@modernreformation.org.

Poetry Submissions to Modern Reformation Magazine

Thank you for sharing your work with us at Modern Reformation! We encourage submissions from both new and established poets. Please review these guidelines prior to submitting.

Guidelines

• Poems may be published online at modernreformation.org or sent out in Modern Reformation to our email list, or both, at our discretion.
• We consider only previously unpublished work. Writing that has appeared elsewhere online for any reason, including social media posts, is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted.
• By submitting your work, you affirm you are the sole author.
• Our focus is bringing excellent poetry to our readers, but we are looking for a specific type of poetry, poetry that is metered and often rhymed.
• We love sonnets, sestinas, ballads, elegies, and villanelles or any type of verse with a consistent rhyme scheme, musical pattern, or musical form.
• We are not currently publishing haiku, concrete poetry, ekphrastic poetry, or limericks.
• Free verse, on the other hand, is sometimes considered but will almost always lose out to a well-crafted poem in the classical form. The effort required to write in the traditional form is excruciatingly difficult and we want to honor those who work so hard to wed their words with classical form.
• For information on the type of formal poetry we seek, please visit The Society of Classical Poets or see the superb book The Making of a Poem by Strand & Boland published by Norton.
• MR serves to honor Christ in all we publish, including poetry. While your poetry does not have to be explicitly grounded in the Bible per se, it ought not directly contradict teaching found in the Bible. Poems that highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful suit us fine.

How to Submit

• We accept submissions year-round.
• You may submit up to three poems at one time.
• We accept simultaneous submissions of poems on the condition that poets withdraw once a poem is accepted for publication elsewhere in any form.
• We ask that poets wait six months between submissions.
• Our response time can take up to six weeks. We have a small staff, so please be patient. We can respond to you only if your poem is accepted for publication. If you have not heard from us after six weeks, you may enquire, and we will reply as we are able.
• Please submit poems, in Word and with an accompanying PDF showing proper layout and line breaks, to poetry@modernreformation.org.

Upon publication, we will provide financial remuneration of $50.00 for each poem we publish. Rights revert to the author six months after publication, meaning that all authors can reprint their work as they like after this six-month period. Modern Reformation retains non-exclusive republication rights and reserves the right to publish the poem in all future formats and publications including anthologies.