Submit Your Work
We publish fiction, poetry, plays, nonfiction, and visual media online and in print. We offer a contest in poetry and fiction, The River Styx Prize, annually.
Each print edition of River Styx is constructed around a theme. We try to keep descriptions as open-ended as possible, and we are certainly open to unexpected interpretations. That said, the works most likely to be selected are those that in some way attempt to address the prompt.
The online editions are intended for general submission and do not require the work to address a theme.
For our submission guidelines for each genre, payment information, and rights, review our Submissions Guidelines.
Reading periods run until we have accepted the right amount of work to complete the issue. If the portal is open on our Submittable page, then we are still accepting work.
To enter our annual contest, The River Styx Prize, please review the entry guidelines.
The River Styx Prize is awarded annually to exemplary works of poetry and fiction. River Styx editors carefully read and discuss contest entries and ultimately submit the strongest ten entries to the judges.
St. Louis Writers & Artists
Are you a local-area creative? Now through September 30th you can submit your work to River Styx for free.
We accept general submissions for the online edition for most of the year. The submissions portal will periodically close when we reach capacity. Online submissions are not required to follow a theme.
You can submit fiction, poetry, plays, nonfiction, and visual media to us through Submittable.
We publish two print editions per year. The submissions portal for each issue will close when we reach capacity. Print issue submissions are required to follow a theme, which we will announce when the submissions period opens.
You can submit fiction, poetry, plays, nonfiction, graphic stories & poems, and visual art to us through Submittable.
Read theme descriptions for upcoming issues at the bottom of this page.
Print Issue Themes
River Styx 110: “Plum” [print edition]
SUMMER 2025
William Carlos Williams writes of eating those stolen plums straight from the refrigerator, and who could ever blame him—they were “delicious,” “so sweet,” and “so cold.” Our theme for the next issue is “plum.”
There are several definitions to explore. Maybe you do want to write about the delicious fruit, or maybe it’s the sweet purple plum color, or perhaps a “desirable attainment,” or accomplishment. Or maybe it’s the variant spelling of “plumb” that inspires you, the measure of a body of water’s depth.
Originating in China, it is likely that plums were first eaten by humans more than 10,000 years ago. The history is long and layered, and the fruits (and their blossoms) have found many uses through the ages in cuisine, art making, and elsewhere.
Submit your poems, stories, essays, plays, and works of visual art via Submittable.