County Lines
A Literary Journal
Open Submissions
Open Submissions
June 1, 2026 — July 31, 2026
The reading window opens on June 1, 2026, and closes at 11:59:59pm on August 31, 2026 (eastern time, USA).
[These rules and guidelines can also be downloaded as a PDF here.]
County Lines: a Literary Journal is published annually by the Carolina Piedmont Writers Guild, showcasing a curated collection of the finest poetry, prose, and interior art/photography by creators of all ages from all over North Carolina Piedmont, the United States, and beyond.
Writers, poets, and artists whose works are accepted for publication will receive one complimentary copy of the journal.
🌟New for 2026: North Carolina Writers are Prioritized🌟
For up to 20% of the accepted submissions, North Carolina writers, poets, and artists will be prioritized in our selection process.
Submitters can be of any age or from any location worldwide.
All works must be your own, original creations.
No AI-generated prose, poetry, or art will be considered.
Work may not contain erotica, violence, hate, political editorial, or excessive profanity.
If you get lost in the interface, click “Discover” at the top of the Submittable.com interface and search for "County Lines". Or just click the link above once again.
Acceptance or rejection should be completed within 4 weeks of close of the submissions window. Each volume of County Lines is published in late November or early December.
Prose entry: only one work of prose of no more than 3,000 words, excluding title. (.docx, .doc, or .odt)
Poetry entry: only one poem of no more than 30 lines, excluding title and stanza-separating empty lines. (.docx, .doc, or .odt)
Cover Art entry: only one image, grayscale. (.jpg)
Formatting the content of your work …
WRITTEN WORKS: Author William Shunn provides an excellent resource that demonstrates standard manuscript formatting: prose and poetry.
ARTWORK: portrait orientation and high-quality images are best.
Filenames: we suggest a filename for your work that includes your byline last name and a shortened title. For example, filenames for works by Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) might be named as such: carroll-jabberwocky-poem.docx, woolf-haunted-house.docx, and twain-celebrated-jumping-frog.docx.
By submitting a work for consideration, you implicitly grant one-time publication rights to the Carolina Piedmont Writers Guild in the event the work is accepted for inclusion.