Backlit
About Backlit
We're Backlit, an online literary magazine that offers in-depth editorial exchanges between our editors and the writers we accept for publication. If your work of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or mixed-genre is selected, one of our Good Light editors will give you quality editorial consultation to develop your work for publication on our Substack and website.
What we accept
Previously unpublished works of all genres. Check our most recent Substack posts to find out which genres we are currently accepting. All submissions are accepted through email: backlit@goodlighteditors.com
For poetry
No more than five poems or ten pages of verse.
For fiction, nonfiction, and multi-genre pieces:
No more than 6,000 words, with a preference given to shorter pieces around 1,500 to 2,000 words.
For works in translation:
No more than 6,000 words of prose, or three poems/six pages of poetic verse. The original text and translation should be included in separate documents and clearly labeled, with the original author's permission, unless copyright has lapsed.
Submission Guidelines
Email submissions to backlit@goodlighteditors.com, and check our recent Substack posts to learn what types of submissions we are currently reviewing.
Please format all works with 12 pt font, double spaced (except poetry), and uploaded as a .docx file.
Simultaneous submissions welcome, but please withdraw your submission if it is accepted elsewhere.
No biographical information is required to submit. If accepted for publication, we will ask you for a short bio.
In your cover letter, please tell us the title of your piece, genre, word count, how you heard about us, and which editor(s) from our masthead are interested in working with and why.
We offer an editorial feedback service whether your work is accepted for publication or not. The fee for this service is $25, which will be refunded if we choose to publish your work. When requesting this service, please indicate in your cover letter why you chose it and what kind of feedback you hope to get.
Other Considerations
Please submit one entry per genre. Multiple submissions in a single reading period by the same author will not be read.
When paying $25 for editorial services, please give us a few months to read and provide feedback on your piece. If we accept your work for publication, and you paid for feedback, we will refund your fee.
For all accepted pieces, we will work closely with you until it is ready to be published. Please allow up to several months to publish your piece, considering the time it will take to edit it. Since we publish only a few works every three months, your piece may also need to wait until our next issue.
After publication, we may ask you for a short testimonial, detailing how you found the editorial and publishing process, which we may publish with the piece or on our website.
We request First North American Serial Rights for any piece we accept, and all rights revert to the writer upon publication. This means that once a story is published in Backlit, the writer retains the exclusive right to publish and create derivative works for other publications.
Backlit also reserves the right to use excerpts from published pieces in promotional materials in perpetuity to demonstrate the journal's publishing record and editorial consultation results.
Submitting your work to Backlit is a great way to work closely with an editor and see if they are a good fit for future projects.
We look forward to reading your work!
Masthead
- Austin Eichelberger: Fiction, poetry and multi-genre editor
- Elliot Jackson: Original English translations from Spanish, German, or Russian
- Steve Jansen: Fiction, nonfiction, and multi-genre editor
- Gina Pugliese: Fiction, nonfiction, and multi-genre editor
- Serena Rodriguez: Poetry