You can see it. We’re only just taking our first steps here. Squinting at the world beyond. Wobbling a little bit on our feet.
The essentials, though…
We are
Editor-in-chief — J.T. Price
Poetry editors — Andres Cordoba and Latif Askia Ba
Founding editors/editorial board — Scott Cheshire | Matilda Lin Berke | R.K. Hegelman | Andres Cordoba | Latif Askia Ba | J.T. Price
Associate editors — Arina Kole | B.E. St. John
Donor roll
Susan Terris | Robert Clark | Daniel Sofaer | Daniel Terris & Maggie Stern |
Joel Hugenberger | Shalom Goldman | Katie & Peter Commons | David Trudo | Robb Todd | Andrew Reynolds | Yan M. Xao
Opening (updated 10/1/26) for poetry submissions for our second issue on November 3rd, 2025. We will close on December 15th, 2025, or once we reach 200 submissions. The second issue is slated to publish in March 2026.
>>> Submissions received before November 3rd, 2025 will not be read. <<<
Stay tuned here, or on IG or Bluesky.
Only send work in one category per submission period.
For all published work, the Contributor grants to Big Score “First North American Serial Rights” (FNASR) to the Work. Big Score is granted the exclusive right to publish the Work for the first time in print in North America. All rights revert to the Contributor upon publication.
The Contributor also grants Big Score the non-exclusive right to publish the Work online as part of its digital archive. This right is non-exclusive, meaning the Contributor is free to publish the Work elsewhere online.
The Contributor agrees not to publish the Work elsewhere, in print or online, for a period of six months following its initial publication in Big Score.
To send us narrative prose (fiction/nonfiction/memoir/what-be-it):
note: We will next open for narrative prose submissions in March 2026.
With no identifying info on your submission file, email us your previously unpublished work at bigscore.prosesubs@gmail.com.
One per writer per submission period, thanks. No upper word limit, but longer subs face steeper odds, and the sweet spot is going to be in the 1500 – 3500 word range.
OK to include identifying info within your email — the evaluating editors will not be reading that until a verdict is rendered.
We pay $400 per accepted prose piece.
To send us poetry:
With no identifying info on your submission file or in the title of that file, email us your previously unpublished work at bigscore.poetrysubs@gmail.com.
– Three poems per writer per submission period and no more than 10 pages total, thanks. Longer poems — the same as longer narrative prose — face a steeper route to publication. Which isn’t to say we’d never run one, just that it is much less likely than the shorter variety.
– Please no author-identifying info in the email subject line, the file name, or within the submitted file itself (we are repeating ourselves for good measure).
– All submitted poems should be contained within one document; we will not consider any accompanying art.
– A short numbered list of the submitted poems in the body of the email is appreciated and makes our work easier.
OK to include identifying info within your email itself — the evaluating editors will not be reading that until a verdict is rendered.
We pay $100 per accepted poem.
To pitch us on a critical piece:
No anonymity here (unless you’re writing under a pseudonym). Send us a pitch for the critical essay you have in mind at bigscorelit@gmail.com. We are open to submissions for criticism year-round, but will only respond to your pitch if interested. Currently, we are seeking critical essays for our second issue, which is slated for Spring 2026.
Think deep dives or reorderings of the universe, not book reviews. We are interested in critical work about specific authors, whether modern or in the fairly recent past; authors of yesteryear (even those still publishing); “scenes,” which includes, say, a certain poetry series or a coterie of authors in a given place, or a literary travelogue; earthshaking manifestos; critical work that defies category. The main thing is that the criticism be engaging and substantive, and that it honor the work of the writers under consideration, whether or not the substance of the criticism is challenging or laudatory. We want criticism with teeth—which doesn’t mean we’re looking for gratuitous takedowns. We believe that to criticize work with serious attention is to honor that work and the author who brought it into being. Show us what matters.
We welcome your submitting fully drafted pieces, or else hammering out an argument with one of our editors before diving into a draft. We will consider essays previously published on Substack if said essay is paywalled. No funds at this time for kill fees, so it’s all or nothing. In nearly every case, we will need to see a few pages at least before signing a piece up.
We pay $400 per commissioned critical piece of around 4k words in length. $800 for around 8k words, and theoretically, although it has never yet happened, $1200 for 12K words. Look, if you pitch us on something that is galvanic enough, a critique that overturns all of the tables yet is still somehow a great read, we are notionally open to giving you the George W.S. Trow treatment and allowing the work to occupy a full issue. In which case we’d pay $3k. Such a case exists at this point only in the imaginary. But, again, we haven’t ruled it out.
