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
Graffiti
Due April 1
Roughly fifty thousand years ago, in a cave on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia, prehistoric humans sketched outlines of their hands. About four minutes ago, in just about any middle-school bathroom, an adolescent used a marker to crudely draw something unmentionable on a stall door. In the middle were vulgar phrases etched into Roman walls, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and many, many cans of spray-paint. Maybe for you they're an eyesore on your way to work. Maybe you and your friends used to head to the railway yard to check out the latest tags and add some of your own. Shake things up and send us your true stories about "Graffiti" by April 1.
Wild Animals
Due May 1
Maybe bears or coyotes roam your backyard, or maybe the closest you get to wildlife is city pigeons and squirrels. Tell us about an encounter with an animal that filled you with awe—or one that was too close for comfort. Do you work with wild animals? Long to connect with them? Have an irrational (or totally justified) fear of them? Take a walk on the wild side and send us your true stories by May 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.