General Submission Guidelines
Moko publishes short stories, poems, interviews, essays, reviews of books, art, photography, and other types of visual media about the Caribbean and its diaspora. Academic articles requiring extensive bibliographic references should be submitted to other journals.
- We only accept online submissions.
- No multiple submissions. Please withdraw and resubmit if you wish to add to a submission.
- If submitting simultaneously, please notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere by sending a note and/or withdrawing the particular poem/piece.
- Only submit, unless otherwise agreed beforehand, original and unpublished manuscripts. Work should not have appeared elsewhere – including your personal website, blog, or social media.
- Moko will retain the rights to your work for the first 90 days, after which rights revert to you and your work is archived on our site.
- If the work you publish with us is used in a collection, we would appreciate an acknowledgment as is customary.
- We aim to respond as quickly as possible but, as this is a labour of love for us, please expect a response within 6 – 9 months. (NOTE: Due to the covid-19 pandemic, our timelines may be delayed.)
Our goal is to publish the best possible work while encouraging Caribbean creators to continue to develop their craft by providing an outlet for that work to be seen. Please note that as we are currently an all-volunteer organization we cannot offer payment for pieces submitted to the magazine, though this is something we are working to change.
All submissions should include a brief biography along with your contact information. Please follow the guidelines below for your respective genre.
Poetry, Fiction, Essays
For poetry, submit up to 4 poems in a single document. For all other work, you may submit up to 2,000 words. NB: We do NOT publish material for children or young adult fiction.
Ongoing Features
In your note to your submission please indicate that you’d like the piece to be considered for “What I’m Reading” or “1 Poet, 1 Poem”.For our “What I’m Reading” series, we are looking for essays on Caribbean readers’ current habits. Send us your case for why an out-of-print book should be regarded as a compelling classic. Send us your notes on unexpected connections to the Caribbean and its diaspora encountered in famous or infamous books. Send us your reading list during the pandemic, your review of the last good book you read, or your somber meditation on the book you’ve always wanted to read but always were afraid to.
For our poetry series, we invite you to send us short essays on a single poem from a recently published poetry collection. Welcome insightful and incisive critique alongside analysis of wider trends and themes.
Visual Media
All images should be submitted in .jpg format. You may submit 4-5 jpgs no wider than 480 pixels for portrait and no taller than 480 pixels for landscape. Each image should initially be under 250kb and should be accompanied by a brief description in the cover page. Larger file sizes will be requested once images are accepted for publication or you may send us Dropbox or other file sharing links. The same guidelines apply for photography submissions as well as photography of art submissions. Videos should be first uploaded to Vimeo or Youtube and proof of authorship must be included in the cover letter.
We are always open for submissions.