The Cypress Review Submissions
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE FALL 2023 EDITION OF THE CYPRESS REVIEW ARE NOW OPEN!
Meet the revamped literary journal of the LSU Ogden Honors College: The Cypress Review. We publish a wide range of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, visual art, short-form literary analysis, and a variety of other innovative works. Please read the guidelines below and the About page of the journal before submitting.
Note: Failure to adhere to these guidelines will result in an automatic rejection.
Submission requirements
The Cypress Review only accepts submissions from undergraduate students. We do not accept AI-generated content.
All submissions should include page numbers, an original title, and an approximate word count. Please format your submissions in accordance with the respective industry standard, e.g. prose should be double-spaced in 12-pt. font (Times New Roman preferred).
You are welcome to submit in multiple categories, so long as you do not cross the maximum submission threshold for a given medium.
We accept submissions in both English and Spanish.
The Cypress Review accepts ANONYMOUS submissions, meaning all personal information should be removed from your work itself.
All submissions should be emailed as Word documents, barring any medium-specific exceptions below, to lsufusionlitreview@gmail.com with “Cypress Submission” as the subject line. In the body of the email, please include your name, your major and year, your city/state of origin, your home university, and the medium of your submission (fiction, poetry, etc.).
If you feel your piece requires any content warnings, we request that you list them in the body of your submission email.
The current submission deadline is October 8th, 2023.
Poetry
We publish poetry of any style and format—rigidly structured, free-flowing, melodic or staccato, song lyrics, and anything in-between. You may submit up to seven pages of poems; each poem must begin on a new page. We are open to handwritten poetry (submitted via scan) if the handwritten nature is essential to the message of the piece, but please note that if we cannot read it, we cannot publish it.
If you are submitting song lyrics, please provide a brief summary (<200 words) explaining the music you imagine accompanying the song.
Prose
Fiction and creative nonfiction submissions will be judged separately. Submissions of both will not count towards the same word count or piece number requirements.
FICTION
We publish fiction of every genre and style. While we encourage experimentation and rule-breaking, we are just as moved by stories that stick to a more traditional narrative format. Please submit no more than three pieces that do not exceed a combined total of 6,000 words. The length of a story has no effect on its possibility of acceptance; we love flash fiction as much as we do longer pieces. Note: While we do accept novel excerpts, these works should be self-contained. If it requires a summary for context, please do not submit the piece to us.
CREATIVE NONFICTION
Similar to our fiction guidelines, we accept creative nonfiction across a variety of genres and styles. Please submit no more than three pieces that do not exceed a combined total of 6,000 words. Again, the length of a story has no effect on its possibility of acceptance.
Screenwriting and playwriting
Calling all screenwriters! Although films, being the final product, tend to receive more attention than their written origin, we welcome screenwriting submissions of any genre. Scripts can be a maximum of 15 pages; please submit as a PDF with industry-standard formatting (e.g. typed in Courier New). There is no maximum to the number of scripts you can submit, though note that we prioritize quality over quantity.
Much like screenwriting, plays tend to receive more attention than their scripts, but we eagerly welcome playwriting submissions of any genre. Scripts can be a maximum of 15 pages; please submit as a PDF with industry-standard formatting. As with screenwriting, there is no maximum to the number of plays you can submit, but we prioritize quality over quantity.
Review
We publish creative approaches to literary analysis, innovative analyses of creative texts, book reviews of underappreciated works, and any writing that doesn’t quite fit into the academic mainstream! If you aren’t sure your piece meets these stipulations, we encourage you to submit it anyway. Please submit a maximum of two pieces that do not exceed a combined total of 3,000 words. Submissions should be in MLA formatting and include a Works Cited; your Works Cited does not count toward your total word count.
Visual art
We publish all forms and styles of visual art, including photography, digital art, comic strips, scans/photos of traditional art (e.g. paintings, sculptures, etc.), and more. If you have created it, we would like to see it! There is a submission limit of 5 pieces per person. Please submit as JPGs/JPEGs or PNGs; the pixel minimum for visual art submissions is 1535 x 1024, but higher quality is preferred. If your submission is not of a high enough resolution for the program we use to create our journal, we will reach out to you.
Awards
While we regret that we cannot pay our contributors for their work, we do award the following $50 prizes:
• Fusion Editors’ Prize for Fiction (includes screenwriting/playwriting)
• Fusion Editors’ Prize for Poetry (includes music/lyrics)
• Fusion Editors’ Prize for Nonfiction (includes creative nonfiction and literary analysis)
• Fusion Editors’ Prize for Visual Art (will additionally be featured on the magazine cover)