Brackish Waters Literary Anthology
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Brackish waters are sites of mixing, places where diverse waters come together to form something entirely unique. Like the seven cities that make up the Hampton Roads, brackish waters form habitats that are both dynamic and transitional, abundant and rich with life, corridors for migration and nurseries harboring new growth.
Our mission is to publish and promote a body of literary work that celebrates and explores the varied and diverse character of Hampton Roads. We are seeking works deeply imbued with a sense of place, with roots that run deep in the Tidewater region.
We are open to submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative-nonfiction, as well as hybrid and experimental works, from both emerging and established writers. Writers need not be current residents of Hampton Roads as long as their work engages with the area in a meaningful way.
We are open for submissions until April 30th, 2026.
Along with your submission, please provide a brief cover letter and third-person bio. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please note this in your cover letter, and notify us immediately if your work has been accepted elsewhere.
All submissions should be formatted in Time New Roman, 12 pt. font, with standard margins.
For prose, please submit one short story or essay of no more than 4,000 words. For flash fiction or non-fiction, you may submit up to three pieces of no more than 1,000 words each. All prose should be double spaced.
For poetry, please submit no more than three poems in a singular document.
We use Submittable to process submissions. Your submission must be in Word or Rich Text (.doc or .rtf) format. The system will not accept other formats, including .pdf. You can find the link to our Submittable at the bottom of this page.
We accept both previously published and unpublished work. Please indicate in your cover whether your work has been published elsewhere and if so, where. For previously unpublished work, Brackish Waters acquires only the first serial publication rights of accepted work. Copyright is asserted on behalf of the author; all reprint rights (print or electronic) revert to the author upon publication, but we ask that you mention Brackish Waters as first publication appearance.