This form is for "Canadian writers." Please use this form if you live within Canadian territories and provinces, or are a Canadian resident who lives overseas. Since our eligibility for national and local grants depends on a majority of our published content being Canadian, we kindly request that only Canadian writers use this form. Please see our international submission form if you do not meet the preceding residency/citizenship criteria.

__________ 

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world. 

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit.  

Guidelines:

• Before submitting, please read about us to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate.
• Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
• We accept submissions up to 3500 words. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
• Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required. 
• We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us and withdraw your piece immediately.
• Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

This form is for "Canadian writers." Please use this form if you live within Canadian territories and provinces, or are a Canadian resident who lives overseas. Since our eligibility for national and local grants depends on a majority of our published content being Canadian, we kindly request that only Canadian writers use this form. Please see our international submission form if you do not meet the preceding residency/citizenship criteria.

__________ 

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world. 

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit.  

___

Guidelines:

• Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
• We accept submissions upto 3500 words. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
• Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required. 
• We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us and withdraw your piece immediately.
• Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)   

This form is for "Canadian writers." Please use this form if you live within Canadian territories and provinces, or are a Canadian resident who lives overseas. Since our eligibility for national and local grants depends on a majority of our published content being Canadian, we kindly request that only Canadian writers use this form. Please see our international submission form if you do not meet the preceding residency/citizenship criteria.

__________  

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world.

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit.

Guidelines:

• Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
• We accept upto 5 poems, submitted in a single file. Please start each poem on a new page. 
• We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us using Submittable's 'message' function (preferred) or at submissions@roommagazine.com.   
• Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

Room Magazine invites your visual/photographic work for our No Canada issue 49.3, edited by Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti.

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world. 

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit.  

______

Guidelines

- In our art submissions, we are seeking works of glitches, surrealism, paper collage, photography, mixed-materials, and fabric-based art that supports our desire to knit together all the literary pieces we uncover during our submissions call.

- These are not images to illustrate accompanying writing, but submissions of their own standing. 

- Here is a collection of art that has recently appeared in our pages. Please take a look before submitting. 

- Submit up to five images (maximum of 1MB sized JPG or PDF) with a short paragraph about the work of art including: the title, size, medium and date. You can also direct us to your work online in your bio.

This form is for international writers. If you are a "Canadian" writer (if you reside within Canada or have Canadian citizenship but live abroad, please submit to our Canadian writers' submissions form)

__

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world. 

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit.     -------

Guidelines:

• Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
• We accept submissions upto 3500 words. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
• Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required. 
• We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us and withdraw your piece immediately.
• Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

This form is for international writers. If you are a "Canadian" writer (if you reside within Canada or have Canadian citizenship but live abroad, please submit to our Canadian writers' submissions form)

_______

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world. 

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit. ____

Guidelines:

• Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
• We accept submissions upto 3500 words. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
• Please submit in 12 point font. Times New Roman preferred but not required. 
• We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us and withdraw your piece immediately.
• Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

This form is for international writers. If you are a "Canadian" writer (if you reside within Canada or have Canadian citizenship but live abroad, please submit to our Canadian writers' submissions form)

__

Canadian exceptionalism. “Canlit.” “Cancon.” For Room 49.3 “No Canada,” we are looking for poetry, prose, and art that offers a critical or alternate lens in this time of sentimental patriotism. For local stories, national anxieties, mixed feelings, and alienated identities. For writing and thinking in conversation with dissenting voices past and present: #IdleNoMore, Gidimt'en Checkpoint, Black Lives Matter, #StopTheStack, No Arms in the Arts, #CanLit Responds, the Postal Workers' strike. We are seeking fiction about how systems fail us and poems about how we fail each other (and vice versa). How life feels here now. How writers and artists struggle to make a living, to live with themselves, as the cost of living rises, as our prizes and grants are funded by genocidaires. Work that refuses to take “the most beautiful place on Earth” at face value; that deconstructs the “true north strong and free;” that denaturalizes “natural” histories of settler colonial violence from Stanley Park to Canada Park; that don’t flinch from Canada’s complicity in waging wars in the Global South.

While one could describe this as an “issue” issue, editors Sadie Graham, Micah Killjoy, Natalie Wee, and Vanessa Sanginiti are equally interested in stories and poems that are concerned with the everyday, the intimate, the strange, etc.—humming with doubts, fantasies, and fears inasmuch as our everyday always is. In creative non-fiction, we hope to read researched essays that look outward and inward. Across genres, we would be very interested in multilingual and/or fragmented forms that refuse the colonial primacy of English-language work in Canadian literary journals. 

International writers and artists: we welcome writing and art about borders, national identity, liberalism, liberation, and related struggles—from the psychological to the revolutionary—and we are especially keen on transnational thinking and Third World perspectives. 

Underrepresented writers—including but not exclusive to women (cis and trans), trans men, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, queer, and/or disabled—are particularly encouraged to submit. We publish everyone but cis men; if you are a cis man, please do not submit.

Before submitting, please read our About section to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate, then refer to the Submission Guidelines on how to format your work. We are an international feminist magazine, and encourage writing and art submitted from all over the world. 

Submissions open March 11, 2026 and will be accepted on a rolling basis until we reach our submissions limit. 

____ 

Guidelines:

• Your entry must be original and unpublished (in print or online)
• We accept upto 5 poems, submitted in a single file. Please start each poem on a new page. 
• We gladly accept simultaneous submissions. If another publication accepts your work for publication, please notify us using Submittable's 'message' function (preferred) or at submissions@roommagazine.com.   
• Please do not send a second submission in the same genre until you have heard back from us considering the first one (Note: You may enter our contests and submit a regular submission at the same time so long as the materials are different.)

 ________

This form is for international writers. 

FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 + publication in Room SECOND PRIZE: $250 + publication in Room HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room's website

Poetry Contest Guidelines:

Entry Fees 

• All first submissions include a one-year subscription to Room. Residence is based on the address associated with your Submittable account, as this is where your subscription will be shipped. Our entry fees are designed to cover shipping costs and are:
• If you reside in Canada: $35 CAD
• If you reside in the US: 45 CAD
• If you reside outside North America: 55 CAD
• Additional entries are $7 CAD and do not come with another subscription. 
• You must submit an initial entry before submitting an additional entry. If you submit an additional entry without first submitting an initial entry, your additional entry may be disqualified without refund.
• Under "Fee," select the correct payment amount from the drop-down menu. You must choose the appropriate submission fee option, or your piece may be disqualified. No refunds are provided for selecting the incorrect fee option. 

Contest Rules

• An entry (both initial and additional) can include up to three poems or 150 lines of poetry in a single document. Please start each poem at the top of a new page.
• Unless form requires, submit your work in 12-point font, Times New Roman preferred.
• You can only upload ONE document (.pdf, .doc, or .docx preferred; can also accept .rtf) per submission on Submittable, so you must submit your entire poetry submission in one file. 
• Submissions must be anonymous—please do not include your name or personal details anywhere in your document, including the file name. You will have a chance to include your contact information on the Submittable form. Cover letters and bios are not necessary and will not be forwarded to the judge.
• Each entry must be original and unpublished.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your submission is accepted elsewhere, please notify us and withdraw your submission immediately. 
• Room's contests are open to women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work.
• Previously commissioned Room writers are disqualified from entering the contest.
• Any submission that does not meet these guidelines will be disqualified. The submission fee is non-refundable. 
• Please direct any questions or concerns to contests@roommagazine.com