Submissions
The Story Room Magazine is a quarterly literary magazine published inside The Heroine Society. We publish fiction and personal essays by midlife women writing from inside a life in transition. The lens does the filtering, not the credentials.
Each issue contains prize-winning pieces, Featured Pieces, and Honorable Mentions. Issues drop August 1, November 1, February 1, and May 1.
What We’re Looking For
Writing from the gut. Specific, honest, alive on the page. Pieces that reflect the messy middle you’re struggling through during our second coming-of-age.
We want pieces a reader can't shake. The ones that follow her into the kitchen three days later, mid-pour of her coffee, where she stops with the kettle in her hand and thinks, oh. That woman wrote my life.
We publish fiction and personal essay. One stream, both forms. The piece either works or it doesn’t.
What We Are Not Looking For
In Heroine's Adventure terms: we don't want the Reintegration essay where you've already arrived, wisdom in hand, lessons neatly packaged. We want the Threshold Crossing essay, where you're still bleeding from the doorway and don't yet know what's on the other side.
Format
Length: 1,500–3,500 words
Format: Google Doc only (your doc must be set to share with edit rights)
Document: Title, your name, word count, and category (Fiction / Essay) at the top. Double-spaced, 12pt, standard font.
File naming:
[Last Name] – [Title] – [Fiction or Essay]
Theme
Each issue has a single theme, a constraint to write against rather than a box to fill. Your piece has to connect to it, but obliquely is fine. We trust the writer.
The theme is announced at the Salon, the day before the window opens. Issue 02’s theme comes at the Salon on 16 August 2026.
Submission Window
The window opens the day after each Salon, when I announce the theme, and closes four weeks before the issue drops.
Issue 02, November 1 2026: submissions open 17 August and close 4 October, midnight Eastern Time. The theme is announced at the Salon on 16 August.
Submitting is free and open to every reader. Prize money goes to paid subscribers, and a winner who isn’t a paid subscriber receives a Heroine Society subscription instead, which makes her eligible next time.
Deadline: midnight Eastern Time on the last day of the submission month.
How Submissions Are Read
Everyone who submits
A free seat at that quarter's Salon, the full 90 minutes including the private conversation. The public pass is $12.95. It's freakin' brave to submit, so you rock.
Three tiers per issue:
🏆 Prize Winners
One fiction winner and one essay winner per quarter, plus runners-up in each category.
If your piece wins:
$150 (winner) or $50 (runner-up)
Publication in the quarterly Magazine PDF (paid-subscriber download), with byline and bio (link to your Substack or website)
Winner is featured in The Author’s Table (free to everyone). A Substack Live conversation where I read your piece live and we have a craft conversation.
Possible inclusion in the year-end print anthology consideration (end of year 1 onwards)
✦ Featured Pieces
Additional submissions selected for publication.
If your piece is Featured:
Publication in the quarterly Magazine PDF with byline and bio (link to your Substack or website)
Possible inclusion in year-end anthology consideration
(Featured pieces are unpaid in year 1. As the Magazine grows, this changes.)
You opt in to Featured publication on the submission form. If you only want to be considered for the prize, that’s fine, you can just say so.
Honorable Mentions
Strong pieces that didn’t make the issue. Listed by name in the issue, with the title of your piece and a link to your Substack or website.
What Happens to Pieces We Don’t Publish
You retain all rights. Submit elsewhere immediately. No exclusivity period.
If your piece is selected for publication (Prize or Featured), we ask for first publication rights and non-exclusive ongoing rights to keep it in the Magazine archive and any future anthologies. You retain everything else.
How to Submit
A Note
Submitting work you cared enough to write is brave. Every submission gets read. Every writer who submits is part of how this room comes alive.
We can’t publish everything we love. But we read everything that comes in.