Open
TSS is open to submissions all year round – but with an old-school twist: via post.
For two weeks a year, we will also be open to submissions via email. These dates fall on the summer and winter solstice in the United Kingdom:
- Sunday 21st June – Saturday 27th June (now closed)
- Monday 21st December – Sunday 27th December
You can read more about this in our Mission Statement.
We accept short fiction and creative non-fiction, reviews, interviews and essays up to 5,000 words.
Terms of Submission
- Short Stories and Creative Non-Fiction must be in English and be between 1,001 and 5,000 words in total. Flash Fiction must be in English and be between 100 and 1,000 words in total. If submitting work via post, writers may send up to three pieces in total. Writers submitting via email may submit one piece only.
- Memoir, personal essays, reportage and all other forms of CNF should be no more than 5,000 words. Flash creative non-fiction must not exceed 1,000 words in total.
- Entries should be the sole work of the author. We accept translations but only with the written consent from the original author.
- Please put your name & email address at the top of your work, as well as the title and word count. If you are submitting via post, please include a contact address so we can send a reply back to you in the post.
- Please number the pages. Entries should be 12pt, including the title. Use a regular font (Times New Roman preferred), and at least 1.5 spaced.
- Separate major breaks with a single asterisk. (See recent publications for an example of this, if needed.) We prefer single inverted commas for speech, though it is not essential. No double spaces after a full stop / period, please.
- If submitting your work via email, please send it as an attachment, Word Doc or DocX. Note, we do not accept PDFs or URL links to word/google docs. Your work must be an attached file to the email, or it will not be read. Please save the name of your short story as the document name. Please don’t add things like ‘TSS’ or ‘short story’ or ‘final’ – this makes admin more time-consuming.
- Your submission(s) must not have been previously published online (incl. blogs, journals, websites) or in print (incl. magazines, books, journals).
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but not advised. Please let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- The decision of readers and editors is final. We do not enter into correspondence about decisions.
- Writers must be at least 21 years of age.
- By submitting your work to TSS, writers confirm that none of the content of their submission is written by what is commonly referred to as Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Large Language Models (LLMs).
- Please include a brief (50-100 words) bio with your email / postal entry, written in third person and beginning with your name. See published work on the site for examples.
- Please keep a copy of your work. Your work will not be returned to you.
A note on Creative Non-Fiction
Due to the sensitive nature of creative non-fiction, please fact-check carefully and provide references for source materials; do provide us with a web link to verify sources where possible.
If there are any details in your CNF piece that you are unsure of due to memory and/or time passed, do email a disclaimer to clarify any creative liberties taken.
Consider the repercussions of writing about others. Seek permission if you decide to name people or anonymise where appropriate. TSS Publishing can hold no responsibility for any dispute raised regarding the content of your creative nonfiction.
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SEND YOUR WORK TO:
TSS Publishing, 22 Appach Road, London, SW2 2LB.
If you include your address, you will receive a note in the post either accepting or declining your work. If your work is declined, you may submit again 6 months later. If your work is accepted, you will be given a publication date.
If you do not hear from us within 2 months, please assume postal delay or personal malady, for which we can only apologise.
There is no submission fee but please consider donating to the voluntary tip jar which helps cover website maintenance & the occasional coffee.
Rights: If your short story is accepted, TSS Publishing will request worldwide digital rights for three months from the point of acceptance, after which all rights will return to the author (please note, your work will remain on the TSS website). Print rights remain with the author throughout. Should the story be published elsewhere at a later date, we would be grateful if TSS Publishing could be noted as place of first publication.
Thank you for entrusting us with your work.