The Examined Life Journal
There are presently no open calls for submissions.
The Examined Life Journal publishes original works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that have not been previously published or appeared on a blog. We accept one piece of fiction or nonfiction per submission. A poetry submission may include up to three poems; we ask that poems be submitted separately. If three poems are submitted in a single document they will not be read.
We accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you notify The Examined Life Journal and withdraw submissions that have been accepted for publication elsewhere. Submissions should follow MLA guidelines, be double spaced, in Times New Roman font (sized 12), and include one-inch margins. Nonfiction and fiction submissions must be 5,000 words or fewer. Please submit as a Microsoft Word (.docx or doc) file. Fact checking and accuracy are the responsibility of the author. Ethical standards for patient privacy and confidentiality must be maintained in submitted works. Patient identifiable information should be modified to maintain privacy. We encourage authors to seek permission prior to submitting work that includes patient stories. Submissions will be received online via Submittable. Please include author name, contact information, and word count in the comment section of the submission form.
We are committed to publishing stories written and edited by humans. We reserve the right to reject any submission that we suspect to be primarily generated or created by language modeling software, ChatGPT, chat bots, or any other AI apps, bots, or software.
On a related note, we maintain an email list that is used to a) notify you of future calls for submissions, and b) keep you up to date on our yearly medical humanities conference at The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. To do that, we ask that opt in using the form here on our website.