Burial Magazine (est. 2025) - submissions closed

allies and enemies, welcome to Burial Magazine. congratulations on finding us, we barely exist; you have passed the first test. [scroll to the bottom to read our features. and please, please read the fuckin' guidelines before you submit. there's a summary at the bottom of this spiel, before the features.]

we aim to publish sharpened and original works of literature: prose pieces of more than 999 words (which is to say, 1000+ words) and poems with less than 21 lines (so, 20 lines max—and yeah, keep it to lineated poetry, please, prose poems will be a very hard sell here and this site hates justified text). wish we could say we have some crazy story behind the 'Burial' name, we just enjoy the music of william emmanuel bevan.

(oh, and by we, i mean me, z.h. gill, i am the only one here, but it can be thrilling to pretend. [fyi, this here's a link to my personal website, which can guide you to a selection of my own writings, if you want some idea of the sensibilities i attempt to inhabit in my work. but i enjoy all sorts of stuff, my taste is eclectic and so shall Burial Magazine be.]) [UPDATE: this is no longer entirely true—the great poet lilly merrill will be joining Burial Magazine as poetry editor when submissions re-open. please stay tuned for additional information.]

send one piece at a time to burialmageditor@gmail.com in an attached word doc (no pdf's, please). original work only (though exceptions can be made to rehouse pieces from obliterated publications). specify in the subject line of your email if your submission is poetry or prose to save us from some headaches on our end, but be aware your work will not be categorized in any such way upon publication, it will simply appear down below. only one poem or story (or whatever else it is) at a time, please. if you send a packet, only the first piece within shall be considered.

[oh, and if you're not paying attention to this guidelines stuff, scroll down, there's a summary.]

Burial Magazine longs for a Free Palestine: donate to the Middle East Children's Alliance if you are able. (putting this here because it's the right thing to do and also because we're especially uninterested in the grifterchud mode of writing so rampant today, this seems like an okay deterrent to that.)

please wait at least 5 years to submit again if your work is accepted. seriously. no real reason for this, we just think it's funny. because of the slow nature of this project, we will unfortunately reject much, much, much, much, much more work than we'll accept. don't feel bad if we don't take your work, seriously, we're looking for something quite specific in effect. and feel free to keep submitting until we do take your work. [unless we tell you to fuck off.] (SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED AS OF JULY 1, 2026! STAY TUNED FOR INFO ON REOPENING!)

don't need a cover letter, but it's still nice if you introduce yourself in your submission email like a normal human would. and please include a brief bio (in the third person perspective, pretty please—and if you're writing from/have in roots in southern california, be sure to mention it, as your work will receive special attention) with your submission in the body of your email and indicate if you're willing to take editorial suggestions. declining them (probably, but...) does not preclude you from publication in Burial Magazine. we're also happy to give (light) notes/thoughts on rejected stories by request, though sometimes we may be at a loss to do so, sometimes it's just 'know-it-when-you-see-it' or not. (and we most likely won't have suggestions for rejected poems, that's even more of a 'know-it-when-we-see-it' thing, but you're free to ask, we won't begrudge you.)

response times will vary; sometimes, they can be quite a while, especially for prose work. please note and internalize that delays in response are not a sign of disinterest in your work. if you've been requested to send more work to Burial after a rejection, please do be aware that the response-time clock resets with each new submission.

despite the quiet, we are always open to new submissions. [UPDATE: PSYCH. SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. ALL SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED AFTER WILL BE DELETED. STAY TUNED FOR REOPENING TIMING.] (and you will get a response to your submission, even if it takes a long-ass time. we hate that shit where you don't.) (also: please be aware that, should your work be accepted here, it will not necessarily be published in the direct order of its date of acceptance vs. the acceptance timeline of other Burial pieces-in-waiting; the timetable here involves multiple factors: some work [especially prose] may go through an editing process which we would consider to be a bit more extensive than those at, well, a whole lot of other outlets for fiction and poetry, if both parties are down, and we're often willing to work with writers to get a piece out at an optimal time, and we've also been known to request to publish certain pieces on certain days due to the content within, like if they have to do with a holiday or whatever—you've been warned.)

while we are largely agnostic to genre, we likely and regrettably cannot handle novel or eccentric formatting (especially in verse) due to our extremely limited web design skills. (but hey, if you can help code it, who knows?) text only, please. we welcome translated work with the proper permissions enthusiastically.

we'll never have a presence on social media in any form; however, our editor will share published pieces across his personal channels, many of which happen to be named—entirely by coincidence—@burialmagazine. because of this, including your social media handles with your submission is very helpful. also, not to be weird about it, but please be at least 18 years old if you're sending us work.

we typically publish on mondays and fridays; sometimes we will publish a bit more than that in a single week, sometimes less. we cannot pay our contributors now, though one day in the semi-distant future we hope to change that; at the same time, please be aware that we're in it for the love of the game here, plus the glory. and we'll also never charge you to submit your work.

rights revert to our authors after publication, but please acknowledge Burial Magazine as the first home to your work if it is reprinted elsewhere. simultaneous submissions are presumed, but let us know if work under consideration here is accepted for publication at another outlet—really, please, please do that. (and congrats if you land it somewhere else, obviously—this shit is hard, the odds are often very much against even the very best.)

to sum it up—or not really sum it up, there's a lot of nonsense above—but these are the most salient bits for Burial submitters:

-SUBMISSIONS RECIEVED AFTER JUNE 30, 2026, WILL BE DELETED - BURIAL IS GOING ON VACATION. PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR RE-OPENING TIMING.
-1000+ words for prose, 20 lines or less for poetry. send one piece at a time. word docs, yes?
-we take forever. (it's just me and i have bipolar disorder.) so keep that in mind.
-if your work is accepted, you cannot submit again for five years [from day of acceptance].
-unpublished, original work only. (if it's on your substack and you want it in Burial, better delete it!)
-please let us know if you're amenable to edits; prose work especially may undergo a substantial editing process.
-due to the nature of the site, formatting options are limited: poetry, especially, may get scrunched on mobile phones.
-we can't pay, but we will promote the hell out of your piece—and pieces can get thousands of readers.
-[we hope to pay one day, when the editor is better equipped to embark upon a loss-making endeavor.]
-simultaneous submissions are expected; if needed, please withdraw work in your initial email thread.
-if you're requested to submit more work, please do so in a new email thread.
-translations are great, but please have [or be ready to obtain] the necessary rights.
-it'd be a bright idea to read some of the work we've published before submitting.
-we're agnostic to genre but may not be the best spot for, say, hard sci-fi.
-please be 18 or older. (i'll be frank: i'm not looking to talk to kids.)
-we'll consider reprints from dead publications, but no promises.
-[and yes, reprints do count toward the Burial 'five year rule.']
-we will consider excerpts from longer projects.
-eccentric formatting is a tough sell.
-rights revert back to you upon publication.
-no nazi bullshit. i will send a virus to your computer.
-no AI junk, either, thanks.
-remember: i am not a prude.
-you honor us with your work.
-thank you and good luck.

also, once more: there is no wiggle room on the aforementioned word count/line requirements.

now please enjoy some selected contemporary writings of strange power and originality haha. (and turn your phone sideways to read our poems! or read them on a desktop, which is probably better anyway...)