Submission guidelines

• This year’s theme is curiosity

• Use the theme as inspiration

• The words curiosity, curious, or any variant of, do not have to appear in your work

Visit @phoenixoasispress on Instagram for Curiosity writing prompts.

• Fiction up to 3,000 words

• Creative non-fiction up to 3,000 words

• Poetry and prose poetry up to 40 lines

You can submit in up to 2 (two) genres. You cannot submit twice in the same genre.

• Each submission must be made separately via Submittable

• Each submission will be charged a separate submission fee

You must submit your own original work.

We do not accept any AI-generated content.

We do not accept previously published work.

This includes work published on your social media channels, blog, or website.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted.

If your submission is accepted elsewhere before POP has made a decision, please notify us so we can remove your entry.

*As noted earlier we do not accept previously published work.

Phoenix Oasis Press exists to help Arizona authors bring their stories to life.

As such, we seek stories from authors who have a strong connection to Arizona — authors with deep roots here.

This can look like:

• Past or present Arizona resident

• Attended an Arizona college, university, or other education program

• Winter visitor or year-round resident

*We’re open to hearing your Arizona connection! You’ll be asked to note it during the submissions process.

Reminder: The Arizona angle relates only to the author.

• Your entry does not need to be set in, mention, or feature Arizona in any way.

Content Guidelines

What we do not publish:

• Explicit content including:

• Graphic and/or gratuitous violence

• Hate speech or content that promotes discrimination against another's race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.

• Explicit sexual content, depictions of rape or sexual assault

• Graphic language

• Political opinion pieces

Our anthology aims to be PG-13 (ish). Rated R material may be included where POP’s review team feels it serves the narrative / poem.

• Decisions related to Rated R content inclusion is at the sole discretion of Phoenix Oasis press.

Trigger warnings inform readers that a submission includes sensitive or difficult topics

People who are deeply affected by certain subjects can’t control their reactions, and finding out too late that a book contains painful material can do real harm (Source)

• Common trigger warnings include depictions of abuse, assault, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, alcoholism, animal death and abuse, child-loss, trauma, gore, sex and sexual violence, and mental health and suicide. (triggerwarningdatabase.com.)

Indicating relevant trigger warning(s) for your submission:

• Will not cause your entry to be disqualified

• Helps to inform our reviewers of possible triggers

• Helps future readers make informed decisions

A trigger warning index will be included in POP’s 2025 anthology

• POP will add relevant trigger warnings to any submission we accept for publication.

Formatting Guidelines: Title Page

• Include a title page with the below information, centered in Title Caps

  • Line 1 (Bold): The title of your work

  • Line 2: Your genre category. Fiction, creative non-fiction, or poetry

  • Line 3: Your word count or line count

  • Line 4: Any trigger warnings. If none, please put “Trigger Warnings: None.”

  • The above are the only four things that should appear on your title page

Formatting Guidelines: General

• Use 1” margins with a page size of 8.5 x 11

• Use 12 pt Times New Roman

• Use black text on a white background

• On all pages except the title page, use a right-justified header with title and page number

• Center the word END in all caps after the last line of your work. This helps our team confirm that we have received all pages of your entry.

For fiction and creative non-fiction:

• Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch. Use the tab key, not multiple space bar presses.

• Make text flush left, ragged right, not justified

• Double-space your submission

• Only put one space between sentences. This is an example of correct spacing. This is an example of incorrect spacing.

• Do not add extra spaces between paragraphs. If you choose to add a line between paragraphs to show a change in location, POV, or time, please center a # on that line

For poetry

• Single-space your submission

• Follow spacing guidelines for fiction and creative non-fiction unless you have stylistically chosen a different approach

File Upload Guidelines

• Save your submission as a .doc, .docx, or PDF

• These are the only file formats accepted by POP’s Submittable site

• Use this filename format: Category_Title

• EG: Fiction_Flowers_for_Algernon.pdf

• EG: Poetry_Still_I_Rise.doc.x

• EG: Creative_NonFiction_The_Face.doc

• With or without the _ is fine. We find it a helpful separator.

Reminder: Your name should not appear anywhere in your filename

Where to Submit

• Submissions will be accepted via POP’s online Submittable page

• You can view our Submittable page at the below link, but you will not see an ‘open submission opportunity’ until March 1, 2025

  https://phoenixoasispress.submittable.com/submit

• You will need to set up a personal Submittable account to submit your work

• Personal Submittable accounts are free

• Submissions emailed to Phoenix Oasis Press will be deleted without being read

When to Submit

• Submissions will be accepted March 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025

• Depending on the volume of submissions, our submission window may close early

How to Submit

• During the submission window, submit your entry via Submittable

• If you are submitting more than 1 entry, submit each piece separately

• Your submission is not final until you have successfully paid for your submission

• Submissions in ‘draft’ mode when the submission window closes will not be accepted

• Submissions emailed to Phoenix Oasis Press will be deleted without being read

There is a $4 fee per submission.

Submission fees and the sale of any copies of POP’s anthology help offset anthology production costs and help create new programs and resources to support Arizona authors.

POP strives to offer low and no cost programming that makes generating, refining, and publishing work more accessible for Arizona writers.

Our team is 100% volunteer.

Authors whose submissions are accepted for publication receive a free digital author’s copy as payment.

Before you submit, be sure you are comfortable with the agreement you’ll be asked to sign if your work is accepted by Phoenix Oasis Press for publication.

The Publisher Agreement includes:

• rights granted

• marketing & promotion

• communication

• indemnification

• and more
  
  Click to preview our publishing agreement draft sample.

The Anthology team hosted four optional live Zoom workshops to help writers prepare.

These workshops are available free, on-demand on our website and cover:

• Workshops 1: The theme of curiosity

• Workshop 2: Editing resources and quality goals

• Workshop 3: Getting external feedback and refining

• Workshop 4: Formatting guidelines and how to submit

Authors who submit to the anthology are not REQUIRED to take any of the workshops. They are offered as a supporting resource only.

If you have questions about anything relating to the 2025 POP Anthology Guidelines or about the anthology itself, please reach out to us at write_on@phoenixoasispress.com.

**The below information is provided by Submittable.

To Submit Work to an Organization / Publisher that Uses Submittable:

1. If you already have a Submittable account, go to this link and click the Sign in tab. Then, enter your account-associated email address and password to sign in. If you don't remember your password, use the "Forgot password" link.

2. If you don't have a Submittable account, you can create a free account by going to the same link and clicking Sign up.

Find Opportunities from Organizations that Use Submittable

1. On March 1, 2025, click this link to be taken to POP’s Submittable page: https://phoenixoasispress.submittable.com/submit

The above link will say “There are presently no open calls for submissions” for POP. This is because POP’s Anthology Submission will not be live and accepting submissions until March 1, 2025. Once it is live, you will be able to search for POP within Submittable’s “Discover” Tab.

If this is your first time using Submittable and publication is a goal of yours, visit Submittable’s Discover tab. There, you can search thousands of creative opportunities by theme, genre, and deadline.

Click here to watch Submittable’s video to learn more about:

• Creating a free account

• Making a submission

• Keeping track of your submissions

• Discovering more opportunities