Rice University's Undergraduate Literary Magazine

[ Submission Guidelines ]

[ What We Look For ]

R2: The Rice Review strives to showcase work from a multitude of perspectives. We look for pieces that avoid expected outcomes, stereotypes, cliches, and constructions. Our journal commends creativity and celebrates craft, and we seek pieces that will move us all. We encourage you to share the stories that our culture, at-large, might inadvertently forget, or even limit. We admire work that takes us away from where we are, and that allows us to exist, if only for a time, as someone or somewhere else.

While we are big fans of sci-fi, mystery, and romance, we aren’t looking for any genre work. Based on our belief in brevity, we also are not accepting any novel-length writing. Send us pieces that experiment with form, be that prose poems, graphic novels, photo essays, collage pieces, or whatever else you can think of. Don't just work out of the box – blow it up.

[ Writing Guidelines ]

  • Simultaneous submissions are allowed, just please make sure to tell us if your piece is accepted elsewhere. 
  • MLA makes us happy. Submissions should be typed, double-spaced if prose, in Times New Roman 12 pt font, with 1 inch margins and page numbers in the upper right corner. 
  • Prose submissions should be double-spaced. Poetry may be single-spaced.
  • Please submit Word documents (.doc or .docx files) only; no PDFs.
  • We do not currently have any length limit for our magazine; however, we're reluctant to publish extremely long pieces, regardless of quality. Generally, our longest prose pieces fall somewhere between 18-22 double-spaced pages.
  • Please do not include your name anywhere in the document.
  • Please give your work a title. And be sure to submit each piece with only the piece's title as the file name.

[ Art Guidelines ]

  • Submissions from all media are encouraged.
  • Please submit images to R2 in the highest resolution and quality possible. Ideally, 2-D artwork should be scanned.
  • Attach each piece to your email as an individual file and not within a zipped folder. You may also share your work through Google Drive and within a Google Drive folder; just be sure to include the link in your submissions email and give R2 permission to access your work.
  • We don't require any standard shape or size – however, by submitting, you acknowledge that if your piece is selected for cover art, it may need to be cropped to fit our square magazine. (But we will check with you first!)
  • Please title your piece, and be sure to submit each piece with only the piece's title as the file name.

[ How to Submit ]

  • You may submit to multiple genres: up to 5 poems, 3 fiction pieces, 3 creative nonfiction pieces, and 5 art pieces. 
  • Please do not include your name anywhere on your manuscripts or artwork. (We like surprises!)
  • In the title of your email, include your full name as you would want it to appear if published and the genre of your submissions.
  • In the body of your email, include a 1-3 sentence bio and let us know if your submission has previously been published elsewhere.
  • If applicable, also inform us if you have enrolled in any MFA/PhD programs or if you have published any chapbooks/books. 
  • If you are submitting multiple pieces to a particular genre, please include all of your submissions in one email. If you are submitting to multiple genres, please use a separate email for each genre.
  • Submit all pieces as individual attached files, with only the piece’s title as the file name.

Looking good? Send it to r2ricereview@gmail.com!

[ What Comes Next ]

We have a rolling submissions system in which we will be evaluating pieces from August to December, although we sometimes return to pieces to reevaluate them according to later submissions. As such, you will hear from us sometime around February regardless of when you submit. Since our editors and their teams assess submissions anonymously, you will not receive a rejection email, but you may inquire about the status of your piece anytime. And of course, please let us know if your piece is excepted elsewhere so we may withdraw it from consideration. 

If you're an accepted writer, you’ll work with one of our editors to polish your work before publication. Editing will generally entail small changes focused on grammar and formatting, and can be completed by scheduling a Skype meeting with your editor or working remotely depending on what your piece requires. You’ll generally have 2 to 3 weeks to revise your piece.

If you’re an accepted artist, the R2 staff will not make any changes to your work, but we may come to you with the occasional request for cropping or a higher quality photo or scan