For our 41st issue, Portland Community College’s literary magazine Pointed Circle is calling for submissions in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art. Our theme for 2025 is DIG IN, and we’re looking for work that interprets and explores the ways in which we can get our hands dirty, find interconnectedness, and ground ourselves in community. 

Dig into a story, dig in your heels, dig into the roots of a thorny problem. 

Topics we’re especially interested in right now: 

  • Connections, community, interdependence
  • Stories of working through radicalization to organization 
  • Exploring root systems, discovering symbiosis 
  • Mycorrhizae and uncovering previously unknown networks of communication and commonality.

If your work treats these themes in whole or in part, we’d love to hear from you. 

We encourage writers of marginalized communities and minority identities to apply. While we aim to highlight the Portland area and particularly the experiences of the Portland Community College student body, anyone is welcome to submit. 

TIMELINE

We publish one issue a year.

Our submissions will be open March 1st – April 24th.
We will respond by the end of May.
This year’s issue will publish early June.

GENRES ACCEPTED

We are accepting submissions of previously unpublished work in the following forms:

  • Fiction
  • Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Visual art

LANGUAGES

We only accept works written in or translated by the original author into English. With translated works, we will print one or both versions of the work per the author’s request. 

MULTIPLE AND SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

We accept multiple submissions within our open period. However, we will only publish one prose piece or three poems from the same author.

We accept simultaneous submissions, but please inform us immediately if your piece has been accepted elsewhere. 

SIZE LIMITS AND FORMATS

For prose, we accept pieces of up to 7500 words. 

For visual art, the file should be between 1500 x 1500 and 2100 x 2100 pixels.

Using standard manuscript format is strongly recommended.

THE SO-CALLED GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Get that shit out of here. We do not accept pieces with any AI involvement. 

WHERE TO SUBMIT

Submit via email until April 24, 2025: thepointedcirclepdx@gmail.com

Please include your name and a third-person author bio in the body of the email. Use a subject line including your name and your submission title(s) as well as the genre of submission.