From Nobel laureates to debut novelists, international translations to investigative journalism, each themed issue of Granta turns the attention of the world’s best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now. Granta does not have a political or literary manifesto, but it does have a belief in the power and urgency of the story and its supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real.
Granta magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, badinage and literary enterprise, named after the river that runs through the town. In this original incarnation it published the work of writers like A.A. Milne, Michael Frayn, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
In 1979, Bill Buford transformed Granta from a student publication to the literary quarterly it remains today. Granta Books came ten years later, quickly becoming one of the most independent-minded and prestigious literary publishers in the UK.
Granta’s Best of Young issues, released decade by decade, introduce the most important voices of each generation – in Britain, America, Brazil and Spain – and have been defining the contours of the literary landscape since 1983. As the Observer writes: ‘In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world.’
When we moved from a paper system to an electronic one, the level of submissions to Granta increased exponentially. After long discussions, we have decided to trial a service fee of £3/$4, equivalent to printing and postage, for prose submissions only. We will not be charging for poetry or art and photography submissions.
Please follow the instructions below if you wish to submit.
We look forward to reading your work!
Guidelines
We will be open for non-fiction and fiction submissions during the following periods:
21 January until 21 February 2019
28 April until 28 May 2019
Due to the unprecedented number of poetry submissions received in October 2018, we will not be opening again for poetry until 28 April 2019. Thank you for your understanding.
Submissions can be made from 10 a.m. GMT on the opening day until midnight GMT on the closing day.
We remain open to submissions of photography and art year-round.
Please submit only one complete story or essay, or up to three poems at a time. Multiple submissions will not be read. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry and art will be considered for both our print and online editions, unless you specifically state otherwise in your cover letter.
We only publish original material, i.e. first-ever publication. We cannot run a piece that has already appeared on the web or elsewhere in print. We can, however, publish an original translation if the work has previously appeared in another language. We have no set maximum length or minimum length, though most of our submissions are between 3,000-6,000 words.
Please include a cover letter stating where your work has been published before, if relevant. Please do not submit book manuscripts, academic essays or reviews. Please only submit work written in English. Please use double-spacing.
Please note that we are not in a position to comment on your work. We receive a significant number of submissions every day, many of which may be unsuitable for Granta, however well written.
We encourage to all who submit that they read recent issues of Granta to familiarise themselves with material the magazine has published. Subscriptions are available here.
Return to the Granta website here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How soon can I expect to hear about my submission?
We aim to respond to all submissions within six months of receipt.
How can I check the status of my submission?
You can check the status of your submissions at any time by logging in and clicking on the status of your entry. If your status is ‘Received’, it has been received. If your status is ‘In-Progress’, your piece has been assigned to a member of our editorial staff.
I’m having trouble logging in to check the status of my piece.
Please contact Submittable directly if you have any trouble with the database.
I’ve revised my piece since I have submitted. Can you consider a newer version of a piece rather than the one I submitted?
If you would like us to consider a newer version of an already submitted piece, please log in, withdraw your piece and submit again as a new submission. Please do not contact us separately asking us to replace a submission. We will not receive this email.
I've sent you three poems. Some of them have been accepted elsewhere, or I want to withdraw some from consideration. How do I go about doing this?
If you want to withdraw any individual poems from consideration, please log in and add a note to your submission telling us which poems you wish to withdraw. We will see this when we read your submission and will only consider the remaining poem(s).
My piece has been accepted for a different publication. How do I notify you?
If your piece is accepted elsewhere, please log in and withdraw your submission from our database.
Can I submit my piece somewhere else even if it’s still ‘In-Progress’ in your system?
Yes. If your piece gets accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission by logging in, clicking on your entry and following the instructions. Please do not write to Granta asking to withdraw the piece. We will not receive this email.
Can I submit something that's shorter or longer than the 3,000-6,000 word guideline?
Yes - pieces published in Granta are of variable length. But please refrain from submitting book manuscripts or novellas. It is unlikely that we will read more than 10,000 words of any submission.
How can I find out what the upcoming themes of the magazine will be so I may submit appropriate work?
We tend to shape our themes around the work we receive, rather than asking authors to write around our ideas. So please send us your best work – and if we like it we'll be sure to find a place for it.
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