Pencil Magazine

SUBMISSIONS

Submission Details

• We will accept submissions from December 15, 2025 - January 15, 2026
  
  
• Starting on December 15, this link to our submissions page on Subfolio will be live. We no longer accept submissions by email. It is free to submit. If you have trouble submitting, please let us know by email — we are still troubleshooting this new system. Thank you!
  
  
• The theme for Issue Three  is “Letter-Writing: correspondence, missives, parcels, and post.” We are interested in handwritten letters; things that travel through the mail; handwritten conversations; past, present, and future correspondence; and whatever else you might dream up. We welcome submissions that also touch on themes around attention and/or pencils. Images, writing in your handwriting, or a combination of both – all created with graphite pencil. We welcome collaborations. We welcome essays, poems, fiction, comics, drawings, diagrams, and more. The text could be the image. The parameters are truly open-ended.
  
  
• We were inspired to create Pencil Magazine by the observation that entire worlds can emerge from pencils, the most humble and universal of tools.
  
  

• If your project is an essay and you would like to pitch it before writing it in its entirety, please submit your pitch by December 22, 2025. Please include writing samples.
  
  

• Specs: Each double-page spread is 12″ x 9″, so you can think of the space as one area or two facing 6″ x 9″ pages. There is a gutter in the middle, so please avoid placing crucial information down the center line. If you wish your artwork to bleed off the edges of the paper, use these dimensions for each spread: 12.25″ x 9.25″. See diagram, above, for guidance. You may download a left page diagram and a right page diagram here and print them out at actual size if that is helpful. Your piece could be one double-page spread, or up to four spreads. We prefer double-page spreads or at least 2 single pages as we generally devote each spread to one contributor.
  
  
• Make sure your name appears on your piece in pencil, on the first spread if there are more than one.
  
  

• Use any graphite pencil. No colored pencils or charcoal.
  
  

• Please use white or light-colored paper for optimal legibility.
  
  
• We prefer to include work at 100% or close to 100%, rather than reproducing larger works at a small scale.
  
  
• High-resolution scans are preferable. (300 dpi or greater.)
  
  

• If we select your piece, you will receive an honorarium of $75 US after the issue has been printed, as well as one printed copy of the magazine.
  
  

• Unfortunately, we are not able to publish all submissions. We will notify you about your submission in February, 2026. We thank you in advance for your submission to Pencil Magazine, and we hope this assignment is inspiring!


• Questions? Feel free to send an email.