Neighborhoods open to submission and links to submit can be found on the Submissions page.
Anthology of Chicago pieces should balance aspects of place and the personal. On the personal side, pieces should convey something about a neighborhood that will be novel to readers, and optimally unique to you and your experience. These personal aspects should not overwhelm the piece, though. It should retain a sense of place: you may be telling us something new about Bridgeport or Jefferson Park, but readers should be able to know that the piece is about those neighborhoods—and not just your experience of them. Thus, poems and stories should reside at the (roomy) intersection of place and the personal.
Just as pieces should have a sense of place, they should be place-specific: not so much about Chicago as a whole, but about a place within Chicago in particular. The relevant lenses for Anthology of Chicago are the neighborhoods that comprise the city, and not the entire city itself. Now, we’re well aware that neighborhood boundaries are hazy and ever-shifting. Your piece could very well focus on the tension between two adjacent neighborhoods, or on the lack of a cohesive neighborhood identity. Regardless of your subject and setting, instead of writing about Chicago as one massive city, as “Hog butcher for the world,” take us down to street level inside your neighborhood of choice and help us to apprehend and comprehend it.
We accept submissions of poems and short stories (loosely defined), with a preference for creative works. No memoirs, please. Submit no more than 5 poems and stories of no more than 7 pages. Please put all poems together in a single file. Unpublished pieces are preferred, but exceptions may be made. Note that not all submissions will be accepted.
Anthology of Chicago handles submissions through a website called Submittable, which involves a quick signup process with your email address or Facebook account. Submittable accepts files in .docx (preferred), .doc, .txt, and .rtf. If you are having problems submitting through the website, please email us. Allow a few weeks for a response to your submission; we are a startup operation! Accepted pieces will be posted on the Anthology of Chicago website.