Submission Guidelines
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About Toasted Cheese
Toasted Cheese publishes flash fiction, fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. Our focus is on quality of work, therefore the number of pieces published in each issue will vary. We accept approximately 5% of the submissions we receive.
Help improve TC's listing at Duotrope's Digest. Please report rejections as well as acceptances. Thanks!
TC does not restrict publication based on subject matter, however, due to the nature of our audience and our service provider's Terms of Service, we do not publish work that includes excessively graphic sex or violence.
We encourage unpublished writers to submit to Toasted Cheese. We are impressed by quality writing, not by a list of credentials.
Currently, there is no remuneration other than recognition. Your support can help change this.
How to Submit
We strongly suggest that you follow our tips for email submissions.
Send submissions to
(Click here for other contact information).Use one of the following subject lines:
- Submission: Flash
- Submission: Fiction
- Submission: CNF
- Submission: Poetry
Paste your submission in the body of the email message. NO ATTACHMENTS.
Your cover letter should include your name, byline if different, and a short biography.
You may submit either one work of flash fiction (500 words max.), fiction (5000 words max.) or creative non-fiction (5000 words max.), or up to five poems.
Submissions must be previously unpublished.
We do not accept simultaneous submissions.
Please submit only once per submission period:
- March issue: October 1 - December 31
- June issue: January 1 - March 31
- September issue: April 1 - June 30
- December issue: July 1 - September 30
Submissions are shortlisted at the end of each month. Shortlist notifications are sent out by the 15th of the following month, e.g. by February 15 for submissions received in January.
Final notifications are sent out in early February, May, August and November.
By submitting your work to Toasted Cheese, you grant Toasted Cheese exclusive electronic rights to your work for a period of 90 days, should your work be accepted, as well as a non-exclusive right to maintain a copy of published work in the literary journal archives indefinitely. Effective January 2008, you also grant Toasted Cheese the right to post an audio version (podcast) of your work on the site (authors of work published 2001–2007 will be contacted to obtain permission for this use). You retain all other rights, including the right to re-publish the work in non-electronic form at any time. Any subsequent publication should include the credit "originally published in Toasted Cheese."
"Exclusive electronic rights" means that you agree not to re-publish your work elsewhere online while the issue featuring your work is current. "Publish" means any public display of your work, and includes your personal website and posting to message boards. You are welcome to link to the page featuring your work instead. Once the issue has been archived, you are free to re-publish your work online.
Best of the Boards selections are subject to the same terms.
Letters to the editor(s) regarding submissions may be published in whole or in part. Names and other identifying information will be withheld unless the author's express permission is obtained.