We publish two issues of Passager Journal each year, as well as a number of books of poetry, short stories, and memoir. Please see our guidelines below.
Poetry Contest
Submission period: February 15 – April 15
Publication: August/September
Accepted genres: poetry only
Up to 5 poems, 40-line max ea.
$20 reading fee, includes 1-year subscription to Passager*
$1000 prize. Honorable mentions will be published.
Now accepting submissions!
Open Issue
Submission period: July 15 – September 15
Publication: January/February
Accepted genres: poetry, memoir, short fiction
Up to 5 poems, 40-line max ea. OR 4,000 words of prose
No reading fee
Not accepting submissions at this time.
Submission Guidelines
New submissions policy effective 2021:
Passager has always been about welcoming new voices and giving readers a broad range of the best work by older writers. We wish we could afford to print all the poems and prose we love. Since we can’t, we often (reluctantly!) must make hard choices.
So, if you have had work in a recent issue of Passager, please read on.
You may submit to the Poetry Contest without interruption each year. However, if your poem has appeared in the most recent Open Issue or Poetry Contest issue, you will only be eligible to win the prize and become the new Passager Poet. You are not eligible for Honorable Mention (the publication of a single poem).
When submitting to the Open Issue, please wait 2 issue cycles (a year and a half) before submitting again. For example, if you were published in the most recent Open Issue or Poetry Contest issue, you would not submit to the next Open Issue. We’ll be happy to see your work again the year after that.
Writers must be age 50 or older at the time of publication to submit.
We prefer hard copy submissions, but for your convenience, you may also submit online via Submittable. Until further notice, we are requesting that any hard copy submissions be addressed to:
Passager
c/o Mary Azrael
5840 Pimlico Road
Baltimore, MD 21209
(Don’t worry if you’ve already sent it to our Park Heights address, we can still pick up mail at the office, just less frequently.)
Include a cover letter and brief bio.
Include your name and contact information on each page (even for the Poetry Contest, or when submitting online).
*Checks for the Poetry Contest reading fee should be made out to “Passager.” Due to the costs of international shipping, submissions outside the U.S. will receive one issue of Passager with the reading fee (the Poetry Contest issue).
No previously published work will be considered.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere!
No email entries accepted.
Unfortunately, we are unable to return submitted work to you.
Work received outside of the submission period will not be considered.
We urge you to become familiar with Passager before submitting. Read samples of past issues or order sample copies.
Have a question that wasn’t covered here? Please check our FAQs page.
Submission Guidelines
Are you keeping a journal or diary during this pandemic? If so, we invite you to share an entry (or two) with Passager, a journal and press dedicated to writers over 50.
We’re interested in observations, impressions, feelings, conversations, encounters with people, and places, drawings, and artwork.
We’re also interested in hearing about (or from) friends and family members living in more isolated retirement communities. Whatever your situation, if you are at home or working, volunteering, taking care of children and parents, please share an entry from your journal with us. No poems or essays, please. Journal entries only. Writers must be age 50 or older to submit.
Total Word Limit: 250 words
Total Artwork Limit: 2 images
Please include: the date of the entry, your state/country, and how long you have been sheltering in place (if at all).
We will periodically post some entries in whole or part on our website and social media beginning the week of May 4th. If yours is selected, we will contact you.
Send via Submittable. We are not accepting hard copies at this time.
Passager only publishes manuscripts from authors whose work has appeared in Passager Journal. This allows us to build a relationship with our authors and their work. If you have not yet been published in the journal, please see the guidelines for journal submission. We have two reading periods a year.
For book manuscripts, our next reading period is during the month of February 2021.
If you have been published in Passager Journal and have a manuscript of poems, short stories or memoir that you would like us to consider, please send us a query letter describing your book. Include a bio and a sample from the manuscript: for poetry, 10 poems, for prose, 15-20 pages.
Send an electronic copy to editors@passagerbooks.com or a hard copy to :
Passager
c/o Mary Azrael
5840 Pimlico Road
Baltimore, MD 21209
Note: We are not considering novels at this time.
Congratulations Dennis H. Lee, winner of the 2020 Henry Morgenthau First Book Poetry Prize!
Dennis will receive a $3,000 prize and publication of his first book of poems. Read more about Dennis, his winning manuscript that judge David Keplinger calls “a serious achievement of growing up and growing older,” and our second place poets and finalists.
Reminders for applicants:
Submissions to the Henry Morgenthau Poetry Prize are now closed. Thank you to everyone who sent us work! Submissions for this biennial prize will reopen in Fall 2021.
All correspondence concerning the contest should be addressed to Passager, 7401 Park Heights Ave. Baltimore, MD 21208. Or email: editors@passagerbooks.com
