Welcome to the Good Life! 🍯
❄️ January 2026 Update: Submissions to our Summer Issue are open (fee of $2.50 for flash, $4 for short prose). ❄️ Our 2026 HoneyBee Poetry Prize is also open (fee of $18). ❄️ Micro Monday Feature subs are currently closed and will reopen in February. ❄️
The Good Life Review is an online literary journal committed to exploring the overlooked. Based out of Omaha, Nebraska—astride the oft-unnoticed—we recognize that there are a myriad of voices that call the regions surrounding us home. Our mission is to lift up the strange, the daring, and the underrepresented to reveal complexities hidden in the heartland and beyond.
We nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, and the Pen/Dau Short Story Prize. We pay $60 for writing published in our seasonal issues, and $25 for Micro Monday features and cover art.
General guidelines are as follows:
- Simultaneous submissions are cool, cool. Withdraw in Submittable – or – for individual flash pieces or poems, send a message via Submittable indicating which title(s) are being withdrawn.
- The Good Life Review acquires First North American Serial Rights and the right to maintain an archive copy of the work online. All other rights revert to the author upon publication, with a request that if the work is reprinted, appropriate acknowledgment to The Good Life Review is made.
- We do not publish offensive work or pieces that exhibit hatred directed toward a particular gender, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual identity, age, socioeconomic class, or disability. In other words, if you are an asshole, we don’t want your writing or your money.
- If there is a content warning, please include it in the submitted document before the work.
- We prefer to read blind, so please remove your name from the submitted document.
- Your submission will NOT be disqualified if it was submitted incorrectly. We will not penalize you for a mistake, and if we have a question or concern about your submission, we will contact you. Please know that we are on your side. Thank you for trusting us with your work.
- Work must be original and previously uncurated. Work appearing on a personal blog or social media is fine. Please reference this thoughtful article by Tim Green on curation. We want your very best!
Currently Supported Genres:
Poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, micro fiction, short cnf, flash cnf, micro cnf, and any of the aforementioned translated from Spanish to English (with the original author's permission). We are also dipping our toes into the wonderful world of spoken word. Details available under our open call for the upcoming issue.
Reading Periods:
The Good Life Review is always open. Reading and selection for our seasonal issues is based on the following schedule:
January 21 – April 20 (Summer Issue). Final decisions in May.
April 21 – July 20 (Autumn Issue). Final decisions in August.
July 21 – October 20 (Winter Issue). Final decisions in November.
October 21 – January 20 (Spring Issue). Final decisions in February.
October 21 – April 20 (Summer Honeybee Poetry Prize Issue). Final Decisions in June.We publish micro pieces on a semi-monthly basis on TGLR Buzz ~ Micro Monday. Work submitted to any category/project that meets the micro requirement (under 500 words) will also be under consideration for this segment.
If a project is not listed / available, it means we have reached our submission cap and our editors are busy working through the queue.
To get a sense for the kind of work we publish, please visit thegoodlifereview.com
Combined prize payout is $1000. The winner will receive $500, publication, and a jar of honey from a Midwest apiary. 🍯 All other finalists will be published with an honorarium of $60 per piece.
Up to ten poems will be selected as finalists by our current editorial team. The poem chosen as the winner will receive $500, publication in our Summer Issue, and a jar of honey from Fruit of Levine farm in Bennington, Nebraska.
The contest fee is $18.
Submission guidelines are the same as our regular publication guidelines. Key details are as follows:
- Original, previously unpublished poems only.
- There is no length limit on individual poems, but please send no more than 5 poems per submission and no more than 10 pages in total.
- Poems should be typed with at least one-inch margins and a 12-point serif font, preferably Times New Roman in Word or PDF format. We do our best to format poems to the exact specification desired, but those with long lines may wrap unconditionally when rendered on some tablets and mobile phones.
- We prefer to read blind, so please remove your name from the submitted document.
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For a comprehensive set of guidelines, please visit our general submission page.
Multiple submissions are permitted, but the fee will be required for each set.
We will respond to all submitted work; however, it may take from one to six months, depending on when the poems are submitted within the contest period. Thank you in advance for your patience.
Work submitted here will be considered for our Summer 2026 issue (online).
Payment for short fiction and CNF is $60 per published piece.
Genre guidelines are as follows...
- We consider original, previously unpublished stories and essays up to 5000 words (if it’s a little more, we will keep reading, but the story has to earn it). Please select the correct category on the form so the submission can be routed to the correct editorial team.
- Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and paginated with one-inch margins and a 12-point serif font, preferably Times New Roman in Word or PDF format.
- If there are content warnings, please include those in the submitted document preceding the piece.
- We prefer to read blind, so please remove your name from the submitted document.
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For flash fiction and cnf, please use the flash category/portal instead.
Poetry for the summer issue is being accepted via the HoneyBee prize category/portal only.
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We also support Spanish translations, provided the rights to translate have been previously acquired.
A comprehensive set of guidelines can be found on the submission page of our website.
We will respond to work submitted here within 3 months. Thank you in advance for your patience.
Work submitted here will be considered for our Summer 2026 issue (online), and micro pieces (under 400 words) will also be considered for a spot in our Micro Monday Feature.
Payment for work published in our seasonal issue is $60 per published piece. Payment for Micro Monday is $25 per published piece.
Genre guidelines are as follows...
- Send one piece per submission.
- We consider original, previously unpublished stories and essays up to 1000 words (if it’s a little more, we will keep reading, but the story has to earn it). Please select the correct category on the form so the submission can be routed to the correct editorial team.
- Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and paginated with one-inch margins and a 12-point serif font, preferably Times New Roman in Word or PDF format.
- If there are content warnings, please include those in the submitted document preceding the piece.
- We prefer to read blind, so please remove your name from the submitted document.
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For longer work, please use the short fiction and CNF category/portal instead.
Poetry for the summer issue is being accepted via the HoneyBee prize category/portal only.
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For Spoken Word:
- Send one piece per submission, max of 3 minutes.
- If there is a content warning, please include it preceding the piece.
- We prefer to read/listen/watch blind, so please do not include your name in the piece or as a part of the file name.
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We also support Spanish translations, provided the rights to translate have been previously acquired.
A comprehensive set of guidelines can be found on the submission page of our website.
We will respond to work submitted here within 3 months. Thank you in advance for your patience.
Work submitted here will be considered for our Micro Monday feature -- a twice-monthly release of micro pieces that appear onThe Buzz and our home page. These pieces are also sent to our subscribers, shared on social media, and sometimes promoted on our Substack. Payment for a spot in Micro Monday is $25 per published piece.
Genre guidelines are as follows...
- Send one piece per submission.
- We consider original, previously unpublished stories and essays up to 400 words (if it’s a little more, we will keep reading, but the story has to earn it). Please select the correct category on the form so the submission can be routed to the correct editorial team.
- Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and paginated with one-inch margins and a 12-point serif font, preferably Times New Roman in Word or PDF format.
- If there are content warnings, please include those in the submitted document preceding the piece.
- We prefer to read blind, so please remove your name from the submitted document.
-------------------------
For longer work, please use the short or flash categories/portals instead.
We are not currently accepting micro poetry via this portal. Bummer, but it is what it is.
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We also support Spanish translations, provided the rights to translate have been previously acquired. Be sure and check the box for translation on the form.
A comprehensive set of guidelines can be found on the submission page of our website.
We will respond to work submitted here within 3 months. Thank you in advance for your patience.