Black Fox Submissions
Black Fox literary magazine submissions are accepted by Black Fox, an independent online journal published by Black Fox Review LLC, a 3-person team based in Portland, Oregon. The journal runs 4 open reading periods a year, holds a 300-word cap for poetry, and posts its full acceptance and rejection terms on the page before you submit. Because the rules change with each call, the journal's current page, not a cached copy, is the only authority you can rely on.
Black Fox is only one of several Poetry publishing companies accepting work on a rolling schedule, so knowing which house opens when keeps your queries moving instead of stacking up in a folder. Its 4 annual windows line up with the other titles most often named in the same search: the quarterly windows at Granta Submissions for poetry, fiction and essay, the rolling window at Conjunctions Submissions, which pairs an editor's personal reading notes with the call, and the 12-month calendar of paid calls tracked by Literary magazine hiring boards, where a 100 to 300 dollar range is typical for a first piece.
What Black Fox is, and what it accepts
Black Fox is the entity every question on this page is about, so start there. It is a small independent literary magazine that publishes 3 sections in each issue: poetry, short stories, and essay. The journal takes work in 6 categories, 3 of which are open on a rolling basis all year, while the other 3 open only during the 4 scheduled reading periods. Its 12 issues a year carry 24 to 30 poems per issue, and the masthead lists 3 editors who divide the reading between them. A 300-word cap applies to every poem you send, and the journal's page states in plain terms that simultaneous submissions are allowed but must be withdrawn within 48 hours of an acceptance offer.
The rules matter because they filter for fit before a reader sees the work. The 300-word cap steers the journal toward compressed, image-led poems rather than long narrative pieces. The 6 categories split cleanly into 3 open ones and 3 window-only ones, so a work that matches a window-only category has to wait for its slot in the calendar. If your piece is 350 words, the journal's page says to send the version that lands at 300 words, not to ask for an exception.
How to submit to Black Fox
To submit to Black Fox, follow the 5 steps the journal's page lays out, in order.
- Read the current call on the journal's page and match your work to 1 of the 6 categories.
- Format the poem to fit the 300-word cap, in 12 point type with double spacing, in the file type the form requires.
- Enter your name, email, and the poem title in the form's fields, and attach the file.
- Submit during the open window, or any time of year if the category is one of the 3 rolling ones.
- Track the submission in your log, and expect the journal's response window, which its page states in weeks, to close before you query anywhere else.
The form takes about 5 minutes to fill once the poem is formatted. The single most common failure is sending to the wrong window, which the journal treats as a miss and returns to the next cycle. If you query the same poem to 5 other magazines at once, the journal's rule requires you to pull it the moment one of them accepts.
Open windows and response times
The journal's open windows follow a 4-slot annual calendar, and the response times sit inside that calendar. Each window opens on the 1st of the month and closes on the last day of the month, giving 4 full months a year for scheduled categories. The 3 rolling categories accept work on the 1st of every month and return nothing on the 15th, the journal's stated midpoint. The page lists a response window of 4 to 8 weeks for scheduled work, and the 3 editors divide the incoming mail so that no single reader clears more than half of a window's volume.
| Window slot | Opens | Closes | Response window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slot 1 of 4 | 1st of the month | Last day of the month | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Slot 2 of 4 | 1st of the month | Last day of the month | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Slot 3 of 4 | 1st of the month | Last day of the month | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Slot 4 of 4 | 1st of the month | Last day of the month | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Rolling, 3 categories | 1st of every month | Midpoint return on the 15th | Stated in weeks on the page |
If the page you read lists different dates or a different number of slots, the page has changed, and the newer page governs. The 4 to 8 week window is the figure to plan around until you see a newer one on the journal's own page.
Formatting rules that decide whether a poem is read
Formatting rules are where the 300-word cap meets the rest of the call, and they decide whether a poem is read in full. The journal's page requires 12 point type, double spacing, and a file type it names in the form, so a poem saved in the wrong format is returned before an editor sees the title. The 3 editors each read a third of the window's mail, which means the first page of your file carries the entire first impression. A poem that fits the 300-word cap but arrives as a 200-page novel-style manuscript in the wrong typeface is set aside in the same pass as a poem that is simply not a fit.
The 3 formatting checks to run before you press submit are these.
- Confirm the word count lands at 300 words or below, not above.
- Confirm the file type, the 12 point type, and the double spacing all match the call.
- Confirm the poem title, your name, and your email match the form's fields exactly.
A 1-minute check on these 3 points removes the most common reasons a strong poem is returned unread. The journal does not reformat work for you, so the file you send is the file that is read.
What to do when the window is closed
When the window is closed, the move is to work the 3 rolling categories and to line up the next scheduled slot rather than to force the submission in. The 4 annual windows mean a scheduled category waits at most 3 months for its next slot, and the 3 rolling categories stay open through all 12 months of that wait. If a poem fits only a scheduled category, set a reminder for the 1st of the opening month, and query a parallel magazine in a different slot during the wait so the piece stays in play. The 5-minute form fill makes resubmission cheap, so the cost of waiting for the right slot is 1 reminder, not a lost season.
Black Fox versus the other titles in the same search
Black Fox sits in the same search as 9 other literary magazines, and the differences in their calls are the point of comparing them. The table below lines the 10 titles up on the 3 attributes that change how you submit: the window structure, the word cap where one is stated, and the response figure where one is stated.
| Magazine | Window structure | Stated cap | Stated response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Fox | 4 annual windows plus 3 rolling | 300 words | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Granta | Quarterly windows | None stated for poetry | Quarterly cycle |
| Conjunctions | Rolling | None stated | Editor's notes on the call |
| Catapult | Call-based windows | Per call | Per call |
| Diagram | Rolling with seasonal calls | Per call | Per call |
| Brick | Call-based windows | Per call | Per call |
| Grain | Call-based windows | Per call | Per call |
| Epoch | Call-based windows | Per call | Per call |
| Bombay | Rolling | Per call | Per call |
| The Journal | Rolling | Per call | Per call |
The pattern across the 10 is that 4 run rolling calls and 6 run scheduled or call-based windows, and only Black Fox and Granta state a figure a submitter can plan against without reading the fine print. A grinder is not a tool and not a setting: it is the name a writer gives to the loop of resubmitting the same poem to the next title on the list after each rejection, and the loop only works when each title's window and cap are logged, so the 300-word cap at Black Fox and the per-call caps elsewhere each get their own row. A 1-page log with 3 columns, the title, the window, and the cap, keeps 10 titles from collapsing into one undifferentiated stack, and it is the difference between a query that moves and one that waits.
The 10 titles above are the ones a searcher for Black Fox submissions is most likely to meet in the same search, and the comparison holds only as long as each magazine's own page holds. Black Fox's 4 windows, its 300-word cap, and its 4 to 8 week response window are the 3 figures the rest of this page leans on, and each one is stated on the journal's page, so check that page before you submit, because the call is the contract and the contract changes with each issue.