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Submission Guidelines

We at the Vernal Pool would like to thank you for taking the time to submit your creative piece to the journal. We understand and commend the courage it takes to expose yourself to analysis and constructive criticism. We look forward to reviewing your piece and will contact you soon to inform you of its status. In the meantime, please feel free to submit additional work, or reach out with any questions or concerns. Thank you once again for contributing your individual expression to our campus and its demonstration of creativity within the student body.

Submissions for the spring issue are now open!

CONTEST DETAILS

  • This edition of the Vernal Pool will have a section devoted to the first, second, and third-place winners of the contest.
  • In addition to the featured section, the prize for these winners is an Amazon gift card.
  • This semester’s contest theme is “aspiration.”
  • Some guiding questions to help you get some inspiration can be found on the submission form here.
  • If you would like to participate in the contest and submit a piece related to the theme, you can mark your interest on the submission form. However, you can also submit your work for the spring issue without participating in the contest and theme.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

  • Submissions are open year-round; you may submit as many pieces as desired.
  • Submissions from approximately November to March are considered for spring publication, while submissions from March to November are considered for fall publication.
  • The submission deadline for the Spring 2024 edition is March 10th at 11:59 PM.
  • Submissions in any language are allowed and do not need to be translated into English. However, it would be helpful to have either a description of the submission or an English translation alongside your work to help ease communication between you and our editors.
  • Submissions should be 12-point in any serif font. For example, Times New Roman, Garamond, or Spectral.
  • Unless the formatting of a piece is essential to the work (as in visual poetry), submissions should be in 1.5 spacing. Special formatting for visual poems and similar genres will be respected and kept for final publication.
  • Submissions must have not been published in other journals.
  • Submissions must be your original artistic and creative work, and not have been fully written by AI (such as ChatGPT) or other similar websites. If you use AI, cite it and state its role in developing your work. In accordance with the university statement on AI, if AI is used and not cited, we will consider it plagiarism.
  • When submitting, you will be asked to mark your piece with a genre – please only use one of the following: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, audio, or video. If you have a creative work that you would like to submit that you don’t feel fits into one of these categories, please submit it under the one you feel fits it best and write a note about the genre of your choosing in the bio section.
  • Submit additional submissions in a separate submission. Works in a collection may be submitted in one submission together; however, they will all be accepted or rejected as a whole.
  • Please check your email regularly after submission for communication from our team!
  • If you wish to retract your work from being considered for the journal, even if your work has been accepted, please email The Vernal Pool as soon as possible.

Please Note: Any work that is published in The Vernal Pool is still the author’s intellectual property. This means that the piece is still owned by the author and can be submitted to any other publication without contacting the journal or the editorial board. 

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS

  • Individual submissions should be in a single file, and should not exceed approximately 2500 words.
  • Please submit poems in individual files, unless they are part of a thematic collection. Then you may submit the collection of poems as one file. Please note that poems in the same file will be considered as a whole, with either all or none of them being accepted.
  • Please submit written pieces as either a .pdf, google doc, or a .docx.

VISUAL ART SUBMISSIONS

  • Visual art is accepted and welcomed – please submit pieces as either a .png or .jpeg (whichever of those two the original file is in).
  • Visual art includes – but is not limited to – painting, drawing, printmaking, comics, sculpture, ceramics, photography, design, and crafts.
  • Please submit pieces individually, and not in a .pdf or .docx collection.

AUDIO SUBMISSIONS

  • Audio files must be accompanied by a transcript, sheet music, or description
  • Audio submissions can be up to 5 minutes in length
  • Music or other audio that samples previously published or copyrighted audio cannot be submitted (all work must be original and unpublished).

VIDEO SUBMISSIONS

  • Video files must be accompanied by a description.
  • Video submissions include – but are not limited to – film, dance, and theatre. 
  • Video submissions can be up to 10 minutes in length.
  • Any work used in your video submission that samples previously published or copyrighted work cannot be submitted (all work must be original and unpublished).

If you have questions about any of the above guidelines, please contact us at thevpjournal@ucmerced.edu or ucm.thevpjournal@gmail.com.

When you’re ready to submit, click the button below to access the submission form.