We publish personal essays, short stories, poems, and black-and-white photography in print and online in our monthly magazine.
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.
Detailed submission guidelines, including our compensation rates, are available on our website.
Essays, Fiction, & Poetry
Writing that can turn heads, open hearts, and change minds.
We publish personal essays, short stories, and poems by established and emerging writers from all over the world. Click here for submission guidelines and payment rates.
Readers Write is a feature in The Sun where readers share their personal writing on a given topic — a unique fixture of the magazine since the section’s inception in 1978. Send us your true story on an upcoming topic, and if we publish it you’ll receive a complimentary one-year subscription.
Not sure what to write? See below for some prompts to spark an idea. Writing style isn’t as important as thoughtfulness and sincerity, and topics are intentionally broad to give room for expression and interpretation.
You can read a sample Readers Write section here. Upcoming Topics
Lines
Due March 1
You wait on them in stores and airports. Actors rehearse them, and writers craft them. Pickup artists use them (or at least try to). Partiers might snort them. Rebels might cross them. They’re on maps, drawings, and medical charts. They’re the wrinkles around your eyes, the scars under your clothes, and the quote tattooed on your arm. Don’t miss the deadline: Send us your true stories about lines by March 1.
Superstition
Due April 1
What’s your reaction when you spill some salt on the table? What do you do when an open ladder is in the way of where you’re going? When’s the last time you opened an umbrella indoors? Does the presence of a black cat prompt dread, or do you just want to pet it? For some, even bothering with these considerations is irritating, irrational. For others, they can be matters of great importance—years of bad luck, or worse, might result if they’re not taken seriously. (Does saying, “Bless you” after someone sneezes still count?) Cross your fingers, choose a fortuitous date (maybe not the thirteenth?), and send us your true story on “Superstition” by April 1.
We’re interested in black-and-white photographs. We’re not looking for photojournalism, just unique perspectives on the world around us — especially human interactions.
Please review our full submission guidelines and sample photographs before sending us your work.