Issue 9 | Theme: Echoed Howls
This theme explores longing, connection, isolation, and the unknown. It asks what it means to speak into the void - to call for someone who may not be there, and to hear only yourself echoed back. It is about the tension between presence and absence, between reaching out and being met with silence. A howl can be grief, warning, prayer, or celebration - but always, it is a reaching. Who do we become when we are unheard? What remains when sound fades, and only the echo lingers?
- Howling wind
- Moonlight and distance
- Forests at dusk
- Echoes in empty halls
- Prayers left unanswered
- Wolves, ghosts, and starlight
- Abandoned radios
- Static and fading signals
- Cold cliffs
- Fog
- Primal longing and emotional rawness
- Repetition and reverberation
- Grief and memory
- The ache of solitude
- Liminal spaces: thresholds, in-betweens, the veil
- Ancestral voices and distant songs
- The search for belonging in silence
- Animal instinct, transformation, shapeshifting
- Oracles, prophecies, forgotten gods
- The sound of reaching out... and what comes back
Submission Guidelines
Schedule
Autumn Issue Submissions: Open from July 1 to October 1, with a release date of November
Spring Issue Submissions: Open from January 1 to April 1, with a release date of May
Response Time: ~2 weeks. Please reach out if you have not received a response more than 2 weeks after submitting.
Guidelines
You must be 18+ to submit. Do not submit work that encourages or promotes hate (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, etc.). We do not accept AI-generated work. If your work is not accepted, wait until the following submission period to submit again.
Simultaneous Submissions: Encouraged - just withdraw via email if it's accepted elsewhere!
Previously Published: No - we ask for First North American serial rights and credit if placed elsewhere. Rights revert back to you after publication.
Poetry
Preferred Formatting: 12 point font, Times New Roman, single-spaced
Submit up to three poems separately using the appropriate Google Form.
Poems can appear within one document, but should be submitted separately for organizational purposes.
Prose
Preferred Formatting: 12 point font, Times New Roman, double-spaced, indented
Submit up to 3,000 words of prose using the appropriate Google Form.
Prose can appear within one document, but should be submitted separately for organizational purposes.
Visual Art
Please submit up to three pieces of art separately using the appropriate Google Form.
Pieces should not appear within one document.
Upload separate image files for organizational purposes.
Don't forget to include content warnings in your submissions! And thanks for submitting to the magazine. I can't wait to see your work!
Reading and Responding: The Process and Timeline
Reading and Response Process
When submissions open, our reading process operates on a two-week cycle. Our team of readers is dedicated to thoroughly reviewing each submission, and they always have at least one week to read through the total submissions from the previous week.
Weekly Voting and Response Timeline
Votes from our reading team are due every Saturday for submissions received during the previous week. This ensures that each submission is given careful consideration within a structured timeframe.
Every Sunday, Melissa sends out response emails. For declined* submissions, we use a BCCed batched template response to efficiently manage the volume of submissions we receive. Accepted submissions are responded to individually, though we still utilize a template to maintain consistency.
*Moss Puppy Magazine does not send out tiered declines
Pop-Up Issues
Please note that pop-up issues follow a different response process than our regular submissions. For pop-ups, we typically collect all submissions during the submission window (usually about one month) and send responses the following month, due to their smaller and more concentrated nature.
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