Welcome to our new submission portal as we step away from reliance on a certain billionaire's products.
Our submission period for When the Water Was Gone — Hurricane Katrina, 20 Years Later runs from September 29—December 15. Our general submission portal will open in October. We're really very excited to read your stunning, honest writing!
Multiple submissions are not allowed. Please only make one submission at a time. After you've heard back from us, you may submit again right away if you so desire.
Simultaneous submissions are fine — just let us know immediately (via
email) if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We do not accept previously published work.
Submissions are always free for general categories. If you'd like to support our magazine, you can become a paid subscriber via our
Substack, become a dual Raising Mothers and Literary Liberation subscriber via
Patreon (capped at 100 supporters), or you can
leave us a tip!
Submission windows will be marked accordingly.
You'll hear back from us in 3 — 6 months.
We nominate for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net.
Our general stance on AI-assisted or written work: Raising Mothers is a human-led project, telling the real stories of the Global Majority. Under no circumstance do we accept work that has been assisted by AI or written in full.
Starting in 2026, we offer payment to all our contributors:
$100 per short story and essay
$50 per flash and interview
Paid post-publication via PayPal or another agreed upon method.
We publish around 4 times a month. Our aim for 2026 is to publish two essays, one interview and one flash per month.
Essays / Narrative Nonfiction (up to 5000 words)
Short Stories (up to 5000 words)
Interviews (up to 5000 words)
Each piece is read by all editors prior to acceptance. We edit rigorously and collaboratively. We prefer to take on work that already feels complete and carefully revised.
We ask for first electronic rights exclusive for the first 6 months upon publication. You grant the right to excerpt portions of accepted work online in order to promote you, your work, and Raising Mothers. You’re also agreeing that if your work is republished in whole or in part digitally or in print, you will credit Raising Mothers as first publication, along with a direct link to the site where applicable. We reserve first world eBook, print and audiobook rights, and non-exclusive anthology rights for our published anthologies. Raising Mothers reserves non-exclusive online rights to publish and archive your work in perpetuity. All other rights remain the property of the author.