For Writers
Submissions
We run open calls for submissions throughout the year:
- Non-fiction call-outs are open four times a year and invite full submissions in response to a loose edition theme.
- Fiction call-outs are open four times a year and invite full submissions for short fiction on any subject (short fiction doesn’t need to align with edition themes).
- Poetry call-outs are open four times a year and invite full submissions for poetry on any subject (poetry doesn’t need to align with edition themes).
- We occasionally open call outs for specific projects such as the Griffith Review Emerging Voices competition.
Griffith Review in 2023
Our 2023 edition themes are:
- Griffith Review 79: Counterfeit Culture (Feb): lifting the curtain on fakes, frauds and forgeries – CLOSED
- Griffith Review 80: Creation Stories (May): exploring the stories we tell ourselves about our place in an uncertain world – CLOSED
- Griffith Review 81: The Leisure Principle (Aug): revisiting the utopian ideal of the leisure society – OPEN
- Griffith Review 82: Animal Magic (Nov): examining our complex relationships with creatures great and small – COMING SOON
Emerging Voices
Calling all emerging writers!
Griffith Review is looking for original submissions of fiction and creative non-fiction from 3,500 to 5,000 words. You can write to any theme you like – but we want new ideas, fresh voices and bold perspectives. We're looking for work that commands our attention.
Griffith Review has a distinguished track record of nurturing new voices, publishing creative thinkers and supporting our writers to establish enduring industry connections.
For the inside scoop on what we're looking for, the Griffith Review editorial team is running a free online information session at 12 pm (AEST, Queensland time) on Thursday, 30 March. Registrations are essential and can be completed by clicking the link here.
For the purposes of this competition, we’re defining ‘emerging’ as writers ranging from previously unpublished through to those with a maximum of one published book (fiction or non-fiction).
Entry fees are $25 for non-subscribers and $15 for current subscribers. The entry fee entitles you to a complimentary digital subscription valid for six months.
To read the full Terms and Conditions of Entry, click here.
Griffith Review gratefully acknowledges the support of the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund for this initiative.
Winners announced: July 2023
Publication dates: from 1 November 2023 to 1 August 2024.
The Leisure Principle
In his 1930 essay ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’, John Maynard Keynes spelt out a vision of the impending utopia. Work, he said, will become a thing of the past. ‘For the first time since creation,’ he predicted, ‘man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem – how to occupy the leisure which science…will have won for him.’
So where did this vision of future past go? Like baco-foil suits and meals of protein pills, it proved to be a concept that withered on the vine. Instead of an excess of free time to be enjoyed at leisure, a radically different regime now dominates the developed nations: the leisure principle.
The leisure principle is one of work hard to play hard, a rigorous pursuit of monetarised hedonism: YOLO, live your best life, have a good time all the time. It has rendered the world a pleasure garden – for those who can afford it – of interminable excess and consumption without end.
Griffith Review 81: The Leisure Principle sets out to scrutinise the terms and conditions of this contemporary compact. From the ecstasy of the digital to the monied spectacle that is sport, the gamification of everyday life to the flourishing hierarchy of influencers, new codes and disciplines have emerged from this regimentation of recreation.
We’re looking for fiction and non-fiction that addresses the question of how we came to cede so much, and at such a price, just to amuse ourselves to death. Are we learning anything as we pay more to play more? And what’s going to happen when the party finally ends?
Things for you to note:
* We're looking for non-fiction and fiction that responds to the theme.
* We'd prefer pieces that are no longer than 4,000 words (they can, of course, be much shorter than this).
* Attention poets! We'll be opening a separate poetry call-out – keep an eye on our social media and newsletter for more details soon.
* We'll let you know the outcome of your submission within eight weeks of the call-out closing date.
Publication date: Aug 2023
Writers’ guidelines
Griffith Review is a literary and current affairs journal that’s aimed at a general readership – although we’re part of a university, we’re not an academic publication. We publish work by established and emerging writers – most from Australia, some from overseas – and we curate each edition loosely around a particular theme.
We like writing that’s erudite yet accessible, provocative yet persuasive – but what’s most important to us is that our writers have the space to express their own voice.
