Submissions
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2025-26 SCHOOL YEAR ARE OPEN
Issue 1 Deadline: October 15, 2025
Issue 2 Deadline: January 19, 2026
What are we looking for?
We are looking for high-quality pieces by passionate writers and artists from the USask community — students, staff, faculty and alumni are all welcome to submit their work. No previous experience is required, as submissions are considered on the piece’s merits alone.
We will consider art and writing on any topic, but we are especially looking for pieces on the following themes:
Fall Submissions, Issue 1: "ChatGPT turns 4"
The class of 2026 will be the first with students who had access to GenAI from the beginning of their four-year degree. AI has transformed university and the world, but to what end? We are looking for human-generated writing and art that considers this brave new world.
Winter Submissions, Issue 2: "Ekphrasis"
Ekphrasis, broadly defined, refers to writing that describes an experience as fully as possible. In particular, ekphrastic writing describes the experience of looking at a piece of art, whether awe-inspiring or stomach-turning. We are looking for writing and art inspired by other works of art.
Scroll down, or click one of the following buttons, to learn how to submit to in medias res.
Categories
We publish fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art pieces. Any form of written or artistic expression that can be appreciated in a physical magazine or a website will be considered for publication.
We will happily consider mixed media pieces (e.g., graphic novels and comics, illustrated stories and poems, photo essays) for publication. In the case where your work blurs the lines between genres, we would encourage you to submit to the category that you believe best describes your piece.
Finally, we will consider works written in languages other than English (so long as a translation is provided for our editors/readers). We will also consider English translations of public-domain works originally written in another language.
Fiction refers to narrative stories, told through prose, about imaginary events and people. We accept writing from all genres.
Examples:
- Very short stories
- Two-sentence story
- Post-card stories
- Microfiction (~300 words)
- Flash fiction (under 750 words)
- Short stories
- Folk tales, legends, and myths
- Excerpts from a longer work, such as a novella or novel
Nonfiction refers to prose writing about real events or ideas. We accept creative nonfiction alongside other approaches to telling nonfiction. While in medias res is not a newspaper nor an academic journal, we are a liberal arts journal and thus invite prose pieces exploring real life topics, issues, and questions.
Examples:
- Creative nonfiction, including:
- Personal essays
- Flash nonfiction (under 750 words)
- Hermit crab essays (an essay that borrows another form to tell its story)
- Lyric essay (essay depending heavily on poetic techniques
- Expository and/or persuasive nonfiction, including:
- Opinion pieces and editorials
- Articles and brief essays
- Edited transcriptions of interviews
- Book reviews
- Excerpts from a longer work of nonfiction
Poetry is a genre that focuses on language and form to convey meaning. Some poems use rhyme and meter as their vehicle to build meaning, other poems are less restricted by these conventions.
Examples:
- Fixed-form poetry: sonnets, villanelles, pantoums, sestinas, palindromes, etc.
- Lyric poetry
- Found poetry (a.k.a. erasure poetry)
- Translations of poems from other languages
- Excerpts from a memoir or novel written in verse
- Spoken word poetry and songs*
Visual art is a vast category of the fine arts that includes any artistic expression that can be represented in a physical magazine.
Examples:
- Drawings, paintings, and digital art
- Photography and photo collages
- Photographs of three-dimensional work of art (e.g., sculpture, installation art)
- Stills from an animated short movie or video installation*
* We are open to including links to pieces that have a video component, so long as a physical representation of the piece can be included in the magazine and the video can be uploaded to the in medias res website (a precaution to prevent link rot).
Submission Limits
Each contributor is allowed to submit up to two pieces of work, not totaling more than:
- Five (5) magazine pages of written material, OR;
- Two (2) magazine pages of artistic material, OR;
- Five (5) magazine pages of written and artistic material combined
Choose up to two (2) from the following list (you can submit to the same category twice!):
- Fiction: 1500 words max.
- Nonfiction: 1500 words max.
- Poetry: 1 poem, 2 pages max.
- Visual art: 1 piece
- Fiction: 3000 words max.
- Nonfiction: 3000 words max.
- Poetry: a series of thematically connected poems OR one long poem, 5 pages max.
- Visual art: a collection of related pieces OR multiple photographs of a piece that cannot be easily captured in one photograph
Formatting Guidelines
Rules
- There must be no identifying information in your submitted document (i.e., do not write your full name in the document).
- For written works:
- Single-spaced, 12 pt standard font (e.g., Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri, etc.) with 1 inch margins
- Must be submitted as doc or docx file
- Include the title of your piece at the top of the document
- While we will consider prose pieces up to 150 words over the word limit, you will be expected to meet the word limit by the time of publication.
- If you are including visual media in your writing, please include the photos in the document approximately where you would like them to appear. If your work is accepted, we will ask for separate image files.
- For artistic works:
- Visual art submissions should be a photograph (or photographs) of your work, taken in the highest resolution possible.
- We prefer jpeg or png files
- Failure to follow the submission limit will result in all your pieces being withdrawn from consideration.
Considerations
To make life easier for our editors, we encourage you to name your files according to the following format:
- Fiction: F_title
- Nonfiction: NF_title
- Poetry: P_title
- Visual Art: VA_title
- Poetry Collection: P_collection title
- Visual Art Collection (please name each piece): VA_collection title 1, VA_collection title 2, etc.
Policies
GenAI
in medias res is a liberal arts journal. We believe in preserving the humanities and humanity. Thus, we want to publish human generated work. We will consider work that uses GenAI for the purpose of commenting on GenAI so long as the human labour that went into the piece significantly outweighs the generated content. All other AI-generated work is prohibited. If we believe a work has been created with input from AI that falls outside the above parameters, we reserve the right to reject it.
Derivative Works
in medias res cannot publish works that infringe on copyright or trademarks. Because copyright law is complex and we are undergrads, not legal professionals, we will tend to be conservative in our approach to derivative works. We cannot publish fan art or fan fiction. We will only publish “recreations” or imitations of a piece if that piece is in the public domain (e.g., your own copy of the Mona Lisa). Pieces that respond to a piece of contemporary art or writing will be considered, so long as there is a significant element of originality. When in doubt, please send us an email and we will let you know if your piece is eligible for submission after consulting with a copyright expert, if needed. We reserve the right to reject submissions if we believe they infringe on existing copyright or trademarks.
Editorial Policy
in medias res reserves the right to refuse to accept or print any material deemed unfit for publication, as determined by the Editor-in-Chief. in medias res will not publish any racist, sexist, homophobic, otherwise bigoted or libelous material deemed to pose a harm to protected groups within the campus community.
Submit here!
We use Google Forms to collect submissions. This ensures that the editorial process is a blind-review (that is, we examine your piece without knowing who submitted it).
Part of the submission process is including a brief contributor bio (1-3 sentences, 300 characters or less) about yourself. These are usually written in the third person. If you need inspiration, feel free to look at the back page of past in medias res issues. These issues can be found on our website or on distribution racks located throughout STM college.
Note: Once you have made a submission, you cannot change it. Should you wish to withdraw or update your submission, please contact us at inmediasres@stmcollege.ca
Fall Issue - "ChatGPT Turns 4"
Submissions for the vol. 31, no. 1 are open until October 15, 2025.
Winter Issue - "Ekphrasis"
Submissions for the vol. 31, no. 2 are open until January 19, 2026.