At this time Pacifica Literary Review is only accepting electronic submissions. Please submit all documents in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format. You will receive a confirmation upon receipt of submission, as well as a final decision through email. Please do not submit any additional work until you have received a decision from the editors regarding work already under consideration. Reporting time varies from one to four months.
Our general reading period is open year-round. Pacifica will close submissions for two weeks at the beginning of September, January, and May for the production of our web issues, after which the portals will reopen as usual. If the submission portal is inactive, we are currently closed for submissions. If the portal is closed during our normal reading period, something extraordinary has happened; in that unlikely event, please refer to our Facebook and Twitter accounts for details.
Pacifica is proud to announce that our 2026 Poetry Contest will be judged by Emily Van Kley. To be considered for this contest, you must submit no more than 3 previously unpublished poems to this category in a single document. Authors may submit only once to this contest. Submissions containing more than 3 poems, or multiple submissions from a single author, will be deleted and the Contest Entry Fee will not be refunded. Submissions received in our general "Poetry" submission category will not be considered for this contest. A single author may submit simultaneously to both the Poetry Contest and our general "Poetry" category, as long as you submit different poems to each category. We do not accept reprints, but simultaneous submissions are fine. Judges reserve the right to not declare a winner; in this rare case, no entry fees will be refunded. First Prize will receive $500, publication in Pacifica Literary Review, and eternal glory. Any Honorable Mentions will also receive publication in Pacifica. Good luck!
Emily Van Kley is a queer poet and circus artist currently based in Olympia, Washington. Her poetry collections are The Cold and the Rust (2018), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, and Arrhythmia (2022), both from Persea Books. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry and Best New Poets, and has received the Loraine Williams Prize for Poetry, the Iowa Review Award, and the Florida Review Editor’s Award among other honors. When not writing, Emily can often be found teaching or performing aerial acrobatics.