CICADA is a YA lit/comics magazine fascinated with the lyric and strange and committed to work that speaks to teens’ truths. We publish poetry, realistic and genre fic, essay, and comics by adults and teens. (We are also inordinately fond of Viking jokes.) Our readers are smart and curious; submissions are invited but not required to engage young adult themes. @cicadamagazine / cicadamagazine.tumblr.com

Current Calls for Submission

Call for Submissions: Hauntings
Deadline: March 27, 2017

Cicada YA/teen lit magazine seeks fiction, poetry, comics, and essays on the theme of Hauntings. A haunting is a remnant of something that never really left and refuses to be completely forgotten. A house might be haunted by the spirit of a previous owner, or a person might be constantly shadowed by past events. Maybe someone is always on your mind, or maybe you are constantly dwelling on what could have been. Show us what’s rattling chains in your dark corners.

Call for Submissions: Aliens
Deadline: April 27, 2017

Cicada YA/teen lit magazine seeks fiction, poetry, comics, and essays on the theme of Aliens. Tell us a story of a stranger in a strange land, whether they be a three-headed visitor from the Andromeda Galaxy or just someone trying to navigate an unfamiliar place. Of course, feeling like an alien does not always have to do with physical location—sometimes you might feel like an alien in familiar spaces. We love works about extraterrestrials and outer space, but we also encourage authentic and diverse works about immigration, gentrification, and feelings of otherness and dissociation. Not welcome: cultural appropriation.

Call for Submissions: Puppets & Dolls
Deadline: May 27, 2017

Cicada YA/teen lit magazine seeks fiction, poetry, comics, and essays on the theme of Puppets & Dolls. Around the world, puppets and dolls serve many purposes—children’s toys, storytelling props, decoration, conduits for the supernatural. How do we pull one another’s strings to get what we want? How do we project our feelings onto one another? How can this harm a relationship? Respectful works exploring manipulation/toxic relationships: great. Exploitative, explicit, or abusive works: nope. Also encouraged: works about totally non-metaphorical dolls and magnificent puppetry performances.

Call for Submissions: Flash Fiction
Deadline: rolling deadline, 1000 word limit

Guidelines

Before submitting, be sure to familiarize yourself with our magazines. Ms. James has sample copies which you can borrow by visiting the English Office any Wednesday or emailing tjames@newarka.edu

Fiction

• Realism, SF/fantasy, historical fiction: Yes, yes, and yes
• Length: flash fic to novellas; up to 9,000 words

Nonfiction

• Narrative nonfiction (especially teen-written); essays on lit/culture/arts; hybrid forms
• Length: up to 5,000 words

Poetry

• Length: no length limits. Send us yer epics!

Comics

• Cicada seeks talented artists who are making thoughtful (or flippant), beautiful (or unsettling), exuberant (or quiet) comics, zines, visual poems, sequential graphic narratives, or any other work in image and/or text. We commission original stories from a brief pitch, and give developmental feedback through the production process.
• If you are interested in submitting, please email a short pitch/sketch(es) and a link to your online portfolio to cicada@cricketmedia.com. COMIC SUBMISSION should be the subject line of the email. If you have more than one pitch, please include them in the same email. Please DO NOT send final art. Please allow up to 3–6 months response time.

Procedure

• We only accept online submissions, and the Submittable page is the only place we accept them. We do not accept hard-copy submissions or email submissions. Submittable accepts international submissions. Please do not email submissions to editors or Customer Service.
• We do not accept queries. Please submit a complete manuscript. (Manuscript should be submitted as a .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf file.) Fiction and nonfiction manuscripts should include an exact word count; poetry manuscripts should include an exact line count. Include full contact information: phone, email, and mailing address.
• Please allow up to 3–6 months response time.

The Manuscript Review Process

• After manuscripts are received, they are reviewed by first readers. First readers consider each submission’s literary potential and whether it might be a good fit for one of our magazines.
• Promising submissions are then carefully reviewed by several editors, including the magazine’s editor.
• The magazine editor makes a final decision on whether to reject or accept the manuscript. For manuscripts that show some promise but need further development, the editor may write the author to request revisions on speculation.

After Acceptance

• If we accept your manuscript, we will send you an acceptance letter detailing payment and rights information and any revisions we would like you to make (which acceptance shall only be binding upon your signing a final agreement that embodies agreed-upon rights and terms).
• Once we’ve received your revisions, we carefully line edit the manuscript. The manuscript is then returned for your review. We work closely with our writers to bring out the best in each story, essay, and poem.
• Once the manuscript is edited, it will be kept on file until it is assigned to an issue. Because we work 6–8 months ahead of each issue, it can be a year or more before a manuscript is placed.

Rights

• Stories and poems previously unpublished: Rights vary.
• Stories and poems previously published: CICADA purchases second publication rights. Fees vary, but are generally less than fees for first publication rights.

Rates

• Fiction: up to 10¢ per word
• Nonfiction: up to 25¢ per word
• Poems: up to $3.00 per line; $25.00 minimum

Art Submissions Guidelines

We’re always looking for new artists! If you’re interested in sharing your portfolio with us, email cicada@cricketmedia.com. Use ONLINE PORTFOLIO SAMPLE as the subject line if you are emailing a link to an online portfolio. Use PORTFOLIO SAMPLES as the subject line if you are emailing attachments. Please limit any emailed file to a maximum attachment size of 50 KB.

Because of the volume of portfolios we receive, we cannot reply to individual submissions. We will be in touch if we have a project for you!

Creative Endeavors

Our Creative Endeavors feature, designed for writers and artists ages 14-23, is a separate submission process that can be found here.  Creative Endeavors is somewhat less competitive than General Submissions, which are open to writers of all ages.