We publish personal essays, short stories, poems, and black-and-white photography in print and online in our monthly magazine. Submit here.
We’re looking for narrative writing and evocative photography from all over the world. Send us work that maps the human landscape, where the light catches on the faintest joy, where darkness sometimes threatens to overwhelm, and where ✗ never marks the spot because the truth is never so simple.
First-time authors and award-winners alike find their place in The Sun. We are particularly interested in submissions from marginalized voices.
Our uncommonly supportive community of readers includes 60,000 print subscribers and thousands more website visitors. And The Sun is ad-free, so when we share your work, we don’t crowd it with distracting sales pitches.
About the Journal
The Sun is an independent, ad-free magazine that for more than forty years has used words and photographs to evoke the splendor and heartache of being human. Each monthly issue celebrates life, but not in a way that ignores its complexity. The personal essays, short stories, interviews, poetry, and photographs that appear in The Sun’s pages explore the challenges we face and the moments when we rise to meet them.
From its idealistic, unlikely inception in 1974 to its current incarnation as a nonprofit magazine with more than 60,000 print and digital subscribers, The Sun has attempted to marry the personal and political; to challenge the status quo and reveal injustice; to honor courageous and honest writing; and to touch the mystery of our humanity. In a world where advertising pursues us almost everywhere, The Sun remains a rare ad-free sanctuary.
Writing from The Sun has won the Pushcart Prize and been selected for numerous anthologies, including Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays.