The theme for the Spring 2026 issue of Chautauqua is
Carnivals and Masquerades. These words, and the spaces they evoke, conjure vivid images of masks and costumes, circuses and ballrooms, pranks, dances, and performances. When we think of them, we think of breaking the boundaries of our normal lives to explore an arena where the line between the strange and the comforting blurs.
Carnivals and masquerades have been the settings for narratives for hundreds of years, from Shakespeare to Disney movies. The idea of a child “running away to join the circus” has become its own cliché. Writers have used these spaces to craft stories exploring pomp and ceremony, community and those ostracized from it, identity and mistaken identity, and the divide between the rural and elite. To say nothing of the potential for imagery: animals, tattoos, elaborate costumes, and more.
We are seeking work that explores not just these places of mystery and entertainment themselves, but the surreal feelings they create. We’re not interested in only reading pieces whose settings include carnivals and masquerades—though we’re eager to read those—but any poems, short stories, or essays that grapple with the questions these places make us ponder:
- What draws us to spectacles and marvels?
- What masks, real or metaphorical, do we hide behind?
- How do we define the “weird” and what happens when weirdness is stifled or embraced?
- How and why do we choose our troupe?
- What are the traditions and stereotypes that define your identity and your world?
- Who are we outside the ring? Outside our jobs? Outside our identities?
- What is home, and when do you leave it?
If you are considering submitting to Chautauqua, please consider ordering our current issue (https://www.chautauquabookstore.com/shop/books/writers-center) and be ready to visit our website when our next issue, Hope, goes live. You will get a thorough feel for the kind of writing we love—and, clearly, what we publish.
This submission portal is for Young Voices--writers in middle and high school, ages 12 through 18. Submissions must include a cover note by a teacher, mentor, or parent as well as an email address for that person. Please identify either a school or writing program that the author attends or participates in. This can go in the cover letter portion of the submission, along with the student's bio.
Submissions may include nonfiction (1500 word limit), fiction (1500 word limit), poetry (1 to 3 poems) or flash (up to 750 words). For prose pieces, please identify as fiction or nonfiction.
Open through November 15 UNLESS WE REACH OUR SUBMISSION CAP. ONCE CAP IS REACHED, SUBMISSIONS WILL CLOSE.
We are seeking essays that value exact and artful use of language and syntax as well as a compelling emotional experience that includes the reader, whatever the subject matter. The best essay is timeless, released from daily headlines but important for its truthful evocation of the world.
Creative Nonfiction should be a maximum of 5000 words in 12-point font, no extra spaces between paragraphs and all pages numbered.
Open through November 15 UNLESS WE REACH OUR SUBMISSION CAP. ONCE CAP IS REACHED, SUBMISSIONS WILL CLOSE.
The editors actively solicit writing, regardless of genre, that expresses the values of Chautauqua Institution: meaningful inquiry into questions of personal, social, political, spiritual, and aesthetic importance. The qualities we seek include a mastery of craft, attention to vivid and accurate language, a true lyric “ear,” an original and compelling vision, and strong narrative instinct. Above all, we value work that is intensely personal, yet somehow implicitly comments on larger public concerns—work that answers every reader’s most urgent question: Why are you telling me this?
PLEASE BE SURE TO MARK AS FLASH FICTION, MICRO ESSAY, OR PROSE POEM. THANKS!
You may include up to three flash pieces in a single file. Each should be no longer than 750 words.
Open through November 15 UNLESS WE REACH OUR SUBMISSION CAP. ONCE CAP IS REACHED, SUBMISSIONS WILL CLOSE.
A Chautauqua poem is not just a pretty exercise in language. It exhibits the writer’s craft and attention to language, employs striking images and metaphors, and engages the mind as well as the emotions. It emerges from the poet’s deep reading and knowledge of poetic tradition, reacting to that tradition to reveal a definite aesthetic approach, opening insights into the larger world of human concerns. This may include traditional or experimental work, but each poem should be meaningful to a smart reader beyond the writer’s private code of expression.
Submit a maximum of three poems, typed single-spaced, justified left, saved in a single document.
Open through November 15 UNLESS WE REACH OUR SUBMISSION CAP. ONCE CAP IS REACHED, SUBMISSIONS WILL CLOSE.