Overview
The Bullpen is a literary magazine for lesbian writing that starts lesbian conversations. We publish issues on the 1st and 15th of each month, starting June 1st, 2026. Each issue contains one poem and one piece of long-form writing, always written and edited by lesbians.
We want to platform lesbian writing that rewards slow looking and careful attention. We love work that people will reread, gossip about, remember, really feel. We believe in the intellectual vigor and creative vitality of the dyke community, and through the work we publish, we hope to engage lesbian writers and readers in conversations about the issues that matter to lesbians today.
Readers are invited to respond to all writing published in The Bullpen through our Letters to the Lesbians series. Prospective writers are invited to submit through the form below. Whoever you are, you should subscribe.
Submission Guidelines
We want lesbian writing that speaks for itself. A sense of humor. A sense of humanity.
We gravitate toward writing with a strong personality. We want to be able to recognize that your work is yours. We like surprising premises, genre-blends, and ideas out of left field. We like imagery that feels earned and accurate, not gratuitous. We like sex. We like magic. We like writing that contains real people, not stereotypes. We like writing with a sense of humor (did we say that already?), that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
We are particularly interested in writing from Trans and BIPOC dykes. We would love to run bilingual work or work in translation (with the proper rights), and we welcome submissions from lesbians all over the world. We want rural writing, local writing, multi-generational writing, sports writing, historical writing, genre writing, erotic writing. We want lesbian writing that takes us elsewhere. And also, takes us places we recognize.
Because we will only be publishing one poem and one longform piece each issue, we want work that can both start and sustain conversations. We want writing that gets better with each reading, and we encourage you to substantially revise your work before submitting.
We aim to be in touch with a decision within one month of every submission. Please give us two months before following up. All contributors will be asked to sign a short contributor’s agreement and to submit a Word file version of their writing. After a rejection, we ask that you wait one week before submitting new work. After an acceptance, we ask that you wait two years before submitting again.
All writing will go through multiple rounds of edits, both developmental and copy, before being scheduled for publication. We are volunteer-run and do not receive monetary compensation for our work on The Bullpen. Unfortunately, this also means we cannot pay writers at this time.
Please include the title of the work, your name, and the word count of your piece at the top of the document. All documents should be written in a readable 11/12 point font. We absolutely accept writing that includes explicit material. If your work contains violence, please include a trigger warning at the top of the document.
Our definitions of poetry and longform are pretty lax. Poetry can include citations, complete sentences, and whatnot. Longform can be fiction, critique essay, memoir, extended letter. If you think your work matches the category, we agree. At this time, however, we do not accept screenplays, scripts, or visual art. It goes without saying, but no AI.
For Poetry: Please send up to three poems at a time, compiled into a simple document that totals no more than five pages. We cannot accommodate complex formatting beyond basic paragraphs, line breaks, and right/center/left justification.
For Long-form (fiction, nonfiction, etc.): Please send us one polished piece of writing, between 2,500 and 7,000 words. Writing should be double-spaced and paginated. If your work is an excerpt from something longer, the excerpt should stand alone, without context.