Poetry
We would like you to challenge traditional notions of lyricism, or avoid the lyric altogether. Stricter forms are fine, but we tend to prefer them corrupted. Embrace the the bizarre, the political, the radical, but do so with purpose. Five poems maximum, please and thank you.
Fiction
We publish fiction of wildly different styles and modes. While we tend to gravitate toward the weirder side of things, our aesthetic is always in flux and this dynamism is exciting to us. We enjoy stories with or without plots, but, either way, we’re looking for complete fictions, ones with an arc, an atmosphere, a heart, preferably with blood. Novel excerpts are fine as long as they’re self-contained: if it needs a summary to make sense, it’s not for us. Please check out what we’ve published in the past; current and back issues are available for free, right here, on the internet.
While we do occasionally publish longer pieces, we prefer our stories to come in at around 3,000 words. We also have a special interest in flash fiction, and brief series of flash pieces.
Nonfiction
We are looking for experimental essays that explore personal experiences, that engage the reader on both an affective and intellectual level. We enjoy work that celebrates the genre’s complexity by pairing compelling content with innovative structure. We want to see you exploring and questioning through your work, so that readers can experience the journey alongside you. Though we’re generally less fond of travel writing, we want to be taken somewhere, with ambience and texture and resonance. Questions are as valuable as answers—show us your vulnerability. While we do occasionally publish longer essays, we prefer submissions of around 3,000 words or less.
Hybrid
NDR’s hybrid category is intended for works that use language, in its broadest terms, to push the boundaries of writing and genre. Possible forms could include: collages, interactive writing, micro-fiction and nonfiction, sound-texts, video-texts, visual and/or concrete poems, or anything else that challenges the boundaries of medium and genre or might not otherwise be able to be published in a print magazine.
If you are sending new media work, bear in mind that we may need to link it from this website, which is somewhat limited in its ability to host large media files and microsites. This may require hosting your work on a third party site.
Art
We consider artwork in all media—from traditional (painting, drawing, photography, installation/sculpture) to new media (video, animation, and hypertext). Please consider our online format, and the possibilities of art on the web, when submitting your work. We want art that works with or around the limits that our online platform offers. Please see our past photography contest winners and the cover art featured in our back issues for a sense of our evolving aesthetic. We strive to push against traditional concepts and forms; send us your wildest and most challenging pieces.
For image submissions, please attach med-res JPGS (no larger than 4MB).
Reviews/Interviews
NDR seeks the most creative interviews and reviews—we want to hear about books and authors that range from the mainstream or the very-well-known to the not-so-well-known and deeply underground. We want to know what’s hot to you. Please see our back issues to get a sense of our length requirements and standard practices—but don’t be afraid to surprise us with something that’s entirely different.
Matt Clark Editors’ Prize
While we regret that we do not pay our contributors for their work, all fiction, nonfiction, and poetry (except for contest winners) published in our issues are automatically eligible for our Matt Clark Editors’ Prize in Prose and Poetry. Two winners each year (one in prose and one in poetry) will receive $250 after being selected by the NDR Editors.