General Submission

There is no charge to submit a short story or poetry to CommuterLit.com. If, however, you would like feedback on your story, we urge you to take advantage of CommuterLit.com's Editorial Critique service.  

Acceptance for online publication is not dependent on whether or not you have paid for an editorial critique. 

Maximum word count: 4,000. Please note that we no longer accept work longer than 4,000 words.

Poets: Please submit one poem at a time.

As well as original, not-yet-published work, we also welcome excerpts from upcoming books or stories already published. Just let us know in your cover letter the publication details. 

We have a very small staff, it's easier for us—and we guarantee that we'll get back to you faster—if you format your stories according to these specifications:

1. Single space between sentences — get rid of double spaces!

2. No paragraph indents

3. For our U.K. friends: Use double-quotation marks — not single

4. For our American & U.K. friends: Our spelling is based on the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. That means: centre, neighbour, colour, defence etc . . . , but realize, etc . . . Set your SpellCheck to Canadian English.

5. We follow Canadian Press style for numbers: spell out one to nine, use numbers for the rest.

6. Leave a single space on both sides of a long dash.