All submissions should be sent to David S. Wills at editor [at] beatdom (dot) com. Please include a short biography, a few reasons why we should read your work, and the submission as a .doc or .docx Word file (unless, of course, you are submitting artwork).

We are also open to queries. In such cases, please let us know what you intend to write and when you intend to submit it.

Note: We accept content for both the print journal and the website. If you are submitting something for the print journal, please keep in mind that we may not respond for several months and that all submissions should be on that issue’s theme (see below). For the website, we are open all year round and willing to consider almost anything as long as it relates to the Beats.

Here is what we are currently looking for:

Essays

Please keep in mind that Beatdom is a Beat Generation-themed literary journal. We publish short stories and poetry, but mostly we’re looking for essays about the Beats. These essays should be interesting and take a different slant on the Beat Generation. There are hundreds of books and essays out there that cover these subjects, so we want something new.

There is no word limit for essays. Please make sure your essay is readable – that means long enough to go where you want, but short enough that you won’t bore your reader. Between 2,000 and 5,000 words is optimal. (We have published works up to 22,000 words but these were of exceptional quality and/or importance.)

Beatdom is what we term a “semi-academic” publication. As that label suggests, we aim for content that is academic but accessible. The subject of an essay should be of an academic nature but ideally it should be more readable than is generally the case with academic material. (Please read some of our recent publications to see what we mean.)

Essays should be sent as a .doc or .docx Word file. Please keep the text single-spaced and do not add two spaces between a period and the start of the next sentence. It’s the 21st century, folks.

Essays stand a better chance of being accepted if they relate to the theme of the current issue. Here are some of our past and future themes:

  • B22 – The Jack Kerouac Special Edition
  • B23 – The Environment
  • B24 – West Coast Beats
  • B25 – SF Rennaissance (deadline 1st August 2025)
  • B26 – Allen Ginsberg Special Edition (deadline 1st April 2026)
  • B27 – Art (deadline 1st March 2027)

There is more info about Beatdom issues 24, 25, and 26 here. There is some info about issues 26 and 27 here.

We are quite liberal in how we interpret each theme and we are open to essays that are rather loosely connected to the Beats (i.e. they could be focused on post-Beat or countercultural writers). However, preference is given to those that directly tackle the topic and focus directly on a Beat writer. We are also a little more eager to have essays focused on under-studied Beat writers or that take new approaches to familiar names.

Poetry

We publish several poems per issue and receive hundreds of submissions. Please don’t expect a prompt reply, and don’t resubmit after a few weeks. Also, keep in mind that we receive dozens of poems that copy Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” or “America.” We are not interested in these, I’m afraid. It is fine to be inspired by the Beats, but try to create something new. The Beats did not achieve success purely by copying their heroes.

Note: As of 2025/26, we receive hundreds of poems sent by AI bots. These sadly make it hard to find real poems by real humans and sometimes submissions are overlooked. As a result, we sometimes fail to respond.

Artwork

Beatdom is now printed in black and white, so any artwork needs to look good once converted to black and white. Again, anything related to the theme of the issue or to the Beat Generation will be considered. We are keen on photos of Beat figures or scenery. A .jpg image is preferred as a preview. We may request something of a higher resolution if we intend to use your work.

Interviews and Reviews

We are open to both interviews and reviews provided that these relate to the Beat Generation or related literary movements. These do not have to be connected to the theme of the issue. It is better to query the editor before submitting a review. If you need help acquiring review copies from publishers, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

Advice on Submissions

Here are some things we frequently reject:

  • Overly basic articles or essays about the Beats. Our readers are pretty well versed in Beat history and do not need to be told who Allen Ginsberg is or that On the Road was an important novel. They know this stuff already. Likewise, there are a lot of very obvious takes on the Beats–they were anti-conformity, etc.–but this has been done to death. Try to find something interesting to write about. (Look through our archives if you want ideas.)
  • I immediately reject any submission about “Alan Ginsburg” or “Neil Cassidy.” It’s a pretty big red flag if someone is writing about the Beats but doesn’t know their names.
  • Don’t tell me that you are the next Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, or anyone else. You might well be the next great writer but I’d rather you told me about yourself and showed me some good writing rather than bragging and derivative text. To be honest, these people are always in possession of more ego than talent, and I’m not interested in publishing them.
  • If your essay has nothing to do with the Beats–even in the loosest sense–then please look elsewhere. If you think the connection is tenuous, then write a polite query. We are open to liberal interpretations of the meaning of the word “Beat.”
  • We have absolutely no interest in AI-generated content.
  • Finally… try and spell the editor’s name correctly. 😉 If you get it right, you’ll be in the minority, but it makes a good impression.

Advice on Style

  • We are open to academic sorts of essays but we might ask you to edit your submission to make it a bit more readable. We are not anti-academic, but we do believe that essays on the Beats should be readable. You should not need a PhD to read Beatdom. We don’t want our readers reaching for a dictionary every two minutes. It’s fine to take topics of academic interest and write about them in an interesting way, though.
  • We capitalise “Beat.” It is thus “the Beat Generation” and “the Beats” and “the Beat writer, Allen Ginsberg,” etc.
  • Cite all quotations and other referenced details by the use of an endnote. This allows for both footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes add relevant information at the bottom of a page, and endnotes add the reference at the end of your essay. Use Arabic numerals for the footnotes and Roman numerals for the endnotes.
  • Book titles are in italics and poems are in quotes. Yes, Howl could be a shortened form for Howl and Other Poems (the book), but “Howl” typically refers to the poem. (Note that essays, song titles, and short stories should also go in quotes.)
  • If you omit part of a quotation, use brackets and ellipses to indicate this. For example, “But suffer for what? Illusions? […] Next the rest of India & Japan, and I suppose later a trip.” If you use only ellipses, it is not clear whether this was the original author’s punctuation or your deletion of words.
  • You may use British or American English but do not mix them together. It is fine, though, to write in British English and then have the original American spelling of a word in a quotation.
  • Quotations should be in double quotes, not single ones. Also try to use curly quotes, not straight ones.
  • We use the Oxford comma. No exceptions.

Website, Journal, Book, etc.

As you may be aware, Beatdom is a print literary journal but we also have a website (which you are currently reading). We are open to submissions for both. If your submission does not fit the theme of the upcoming print journal edition, you may submit for publication on the website. We are open to this year-round. We also run a Substack now, which we use for long-form, meticulously researched essays. These are longer and a bit different in tone from those published on this website. If you want your essay published there, you will need to sign up for Substack and we will publish the essay with you as co-author. This does not require any technical knowledge; you merely need to accept the invitation so that your account is linked to the post. Here are some examples of what we like for publication there:

These essays tend to be the length of short books. We do not publish chapbooks, but these are similar in focus and length.

We also publish books about the Beats and are open to submissions at all times. However, note that we do have many titles planned for 2026-2028 already. If we accept your manuscript, it may not be published for a few years. Feel free to send questions and queries though. You can see our previously published books and some future ones here.