Submissions

Our publications and website reflect and represent the best of new writing mainly from Nigeria, and the rest of the African continent.  Our goal is to give new writers the opportunity of having their works published. “New writers” is defined loosely, to spark useful dialogue—we are interested in writers whose work show tremendous promise but have hardly been published in a major literary magazine.

Saraba’s staff is a small number of committed and enthusiastic but busy writers, scholars and artists. As such, entries that do not keep to our guidelines would not be considered, unfortunately. Interested contributors should consider downloading a copy of one of our past issues.

Beginning in 2017, we will publish at least one print publication each year, as well as in digital form, on our website and as PDF.

Submissions are closed for both our print publication and website. Please check back in November 2017.

During our open call, we ask prospective contributors to keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Send your unpublished work in any of our three broad categories: Fiction, Poetry and Non-Fiction. Do not send in any material that has been published elsewhere in print or on the web. All entries are read blind. After the deadline for submission has expired, expect to hear from us within 3-4 months.
• Send no more than one work at a time, and wait for our response before you send another.
• The maximum word count for fiction works is 4,500, except otherwise announced.
• We will accept no more than 3 poems at a time, submitted in one document.
• For non-fiction, we expect a broad range of new creative writing, including short memoirs, interviews, reviews, creative non-fiction, creative journalism, etc. The maximum count for this is 3,000.
• We are also open to visual art, including photography and illustrations. Send in low resolution jpeg files (not larger than 4 MB). If we like your work we will ask for larger resolution files.
• Send alongside a bio of not more than 50 words (in third person).
• Only submit on saraba.submittable.com.
• We encourage contributors to send their work only when a call for submissions has been made on our announcements page.
• Chapbook: Unsolicited poetry will not be considered for the chapbooks. Publication of a chapbook is at the discretion of the publishers and the editors, who take into account previous publication in issues of the magazine and/or an author’s critical acclaim. Further enquiries should be directed to editor@sarabamag.com.

Our payment policy: Saraba magazine was founded and is run by writers, hence we value the time that goes into the process of making work. Although our aim is to compensate our contributors in a manner commensurate with their labour, we can only offer a flat fee per contributor. By submitting to Saraba, or agreeing to include you work in our publications, you accept to publish under these payment terms.