Welcome to the Good Life!
The Good Life Review is a quarterly 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 are currently open for multiple publication opportunities plus artwork! We nominate for Pushcart and Best of the Net and pay $25-$55 for each published piece of writing.
General guidelines are as follows:
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as we are promptly made aware of acceptance elsewhere. To withdraw scripts or prose please withdraw the entire submission through Submittable. To withdraw individual flash pieces or poems, please send a message from the submission indicating which title(s) are being withdrawn.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 work online. All other rights revert to 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- We do not publish offensive work or pieces which exhibit hatred directed toward a particular gender, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual identity, socioeconomic class, or other status, regardless of protected by law. In other words—if you are an asshole, we don't want your writing or your money.
- Submit only once per genre during in any given reading period and only one category in a single submission (for example do not create a submission with both fiction and poetry unless it is to be considered as a hybrid piece).
- Please do not submit the same piece twice unless specifically requested to do so by one of our editors.
- Work must be original and previously unpublished. Give us your very best!
Currently Supported Genres:
Poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, micro fiction, short cnf, flash cnf, micro cnf, stage and screen plays, and any of the aforementioned translated from Spanish to English (with the original author's permission).
Reading Periods:
Reading and selection for our quarterly issues is based on the following schedule:
March 1 - July 31 (Autumn Issue)
August 1 - October 31 (Winter Issue)
November 1 - January 31st (Spring Issue)
December 15 - April 30 (Summer Honeybee Prize Issue)
As of February 2023 we publish micro prose and short poems on a semi-monthly basis on The Buzz Blog. Pieces submitted to any category/project that meet the micro requirement (word count) will also be under consideration for the Buzz.
In addition, we also post book reviews. If you have a book review you would like us to consider, please send to editors@thegoodlifereview.com. We do not accept book reviews via Submittable.
We are always open for artwork to be featured in our quarterly issues which is free to submit.
To get an sense for the kind of work we publish, please visit thegoodlifereview.com/
Work submitted here will be considered for our "Micro Monday" segment (online) and not our quarterly issues. We currently pay $25 per piece for work published in this segment. Guidelines are as follows:
- One piece per submission, please. Once you submit, please wait until you hear back from us before submitting to this micro prose / short poem category again. Other submission opportunities for publication at TGLR are here.
- We consider original, previously unpublished work only.
- Max word count for fiction and CNF is about 500 words.
- A single poem, no longer than 1 page.
- Submissions should be typed using 12 point serif font, preferably Times New Roman in Word or PDF format. Prose should be double spaced whereas poems should be formatted as the author desires. We do our best to retain any special formatting when publishing.
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We support Spanish translations as long as the rights to translate have been previously acquired.
For all submissions: Please ensure that personal identifiable information (name, email, address) is removed from the attached document. Failure to do so will result in the submission being declined without consideration.
A comprehensive set of guidelines can be found on our submission page.
Does your original photography or artwork tell a story? We are currently looking for pieces to feature in our next issue. There are no specific guidelines and the only requirement is that you must own rights to the images submitted. We would encourage you to check out our latest issue @ https://thegoodlifereview.com/ to see if we would be a good home for your work.
Please note: We're a 501C3 nonprofit organization and every member of our staff is a volunteer. We put a priority on creating a beautiful platform for artists and writers to showcase their work and a positive experience with publishing but are not yet in a position to pay for artwork. We appreciate all the love that goes into every piece and hope that we can pay people for their efforts soon.
Work submitted here will be considered for our autumn 2023 issue (online). We publish poetry, stage & screen plays, flash fiction, flash nonfiction, fiction, nonfiction, and Spanish translations. Payment for this issue is $55 per published piece of writing. Genre guidelines are as follows:
For Fiction and Creative Nonfiction:
- 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 (short, flash, micro) on the form so the submission can be routed to the correct editorial team.
- For flash and micro, no more than 3 pieces in a single submission.
- 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.
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For Poetry:
- We consider original, previously unpublished poems in formal, free verse, and experimental forms.
- There is no length limit on individual poems, but please send no more than six 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.
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For Stage Plays & Screenplays:
- We consider original, previously unpublished 10-Minute plays, One Acts, and short films and television scripts/pilots up to 30 pages in length.
- Paginate each script.
- Please include a cover page with no identifying information as well as character breakdown list and staging instructions.
- Scripts diverging from standard playscript or screenplay formatting will not be considered. Please ensure each script is formatted for performance: An example can be found here.
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We support Spanish translations as long as the rights to translate have been previously acquired.
For all submissions: Please ensure that all personal identifiable information (name, email, address, phone, etc.) is removed from the attached document. Failure to do so will result in submission disqualification. A comprehensive set of guidelines can be found on the submission page of our website.
Work submitted here will be considered for our autumn 2023 issue (online). We publish poetry, stage & screen plays, flash fiction, flash nonfiction, fiction, nonfiction, and Spanish translations. Payment for this issue is $55 per published piece of writing. Genre guidelines are as follows:
For Fiction and Creative Nonfiction:
- 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 (short, flash, micro) on the form so the submission can be routed to the correct editorial team.
- For flash and micro, no more than 3 pieces in a single submission.
- 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.
-------------------------
For Poetry:
- We consider original, previously unpublished poems in formal, free verse, and experimental forms.
- There is no length limit on individual poems, but please send no more than six 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.
-------------------------
For Stage Plays & Screenplays:
- We consider original, previously unpublished 10-Minute plays, One Acts, and short films and television scripts/pilots up to 30 pages in length.
- Paginate each script.
- Please include a cover page with no identifying information as well as character breakdown list and staging instructions.
- Scripts diverging from standard playscript or screenplay formatting will not be considered. Please ensure each script is formatted for performance: An example can be found here.
-------------------------
We support Spanish translations as long as the rights to translate have been previously acquired.
For all submissions: Please ensure that all personal identifiable information (name, email, address, phone, etc.) is removed from the attached document. Failure to do so will result in submission disqualification. A comprehensive set of guidelines can be found on the submission page of our website.