Upcoming General Submissions Deadlines:

• 2025: June 16, 2025; November 15, 2025; January 15, 2026.

Many issues of Friends Journal are set aside for specific themes. Every 18 months or so we poll readers and dream up ideas for future issues (you can see the current list on our submissions page).

We also keep four issues a year open: no theme and no expectations. Most of our unsolicited articles go into a “General Submissions” list that we hold for these issues. Sometimes a choice is easy: we’ll get a blockbuster article that we know we just have to print. But just as often we’ll run some quiet piece of Quaker life that is offered to us without regard to our schedules.

The first bit of advice is to give our editorial submission guidelines a good once-over. The introduction to what we’re looking for is instructive.

We prefer articles written in a fresh, non‐academic style. Friends value an experiential approach to life and religious thought. Our readers particularly value articles on: exploring Friends’ testimonies and beliefs; integrating faith, work, and home lives; historical and contemporary Friends; social concerns and actions; and the variety of beliefs across the branches of Friends.

You should also study our tips for writing for Friends Journal. This is our list of the most-common pitfalls for incoming submissions—problems like length, structure, and tone.

The next thing to ask when writing or pitching an article to us is “why Friends Journal?” There are very few places where someone can write on the Quaker experience and see their work published. This scarcity weighs on us as we select an open issue’s mix. Authors don’t need to be Quaker, but the piece should have a strong Quaker hook. We’re not above doing a control-F on a submission to see how many times “Quaker” or “Friends” is mentioned. If it’s just a tacked-on reference because you’re shopping a piece written for another publication, it probably won’t work for us.

When you’re ready to send us something, please use the Submittable service so that we will have all of your information on file. “General Submissions” is the category for material that we consider for non-themed issues.

Link to share: Writing for General Submissions

Please note: All poetry should be submitted separately here.

In November 2025 we will publish our fifth annual issue of Quaker Fiction (you can read through our first, second, third, and fourth issues here). It’s open to all genres—crime, fantasy, romance, science fiction and horror, young adult, and more. Surprise us with your work! For this special issue, we’re seeking short stories from 500-2000 words, and flash fiction of less than 500 words. We’re seeking stories of Quakers and their experiences outside of what is true of the world we inhabit today. We welcome submissions from Friends and non-Friends alike. While we’re casting a wide net, we’re not the right market for erotica or extreme horror. We are also not a market for fan fiction or other works that use other folks’ intellectual property. We are a queer-affirming publication and will not be accepting any work based in homophobia, transphobia, or general racism, sexism, bigotry, or fascism. 

Fast Facts 

• Submission length: 500-2000 words
• Submissions close August 18, 2025.
• For our fiction issues we use a slightly modified version of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Model Magazine Contract, Version 3.1. Pay: $0.12/word
• Questions? Email editors@friendsjournal.org

Learn more general information at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.

[box]We know there are plenty of Quakers who only need a little nudge to share their perspectives with a wider audience. If you know anyone who should write about this topic, please share this post with them![/box]

Fast Facts

• Features run 1200-2500 words (General information)
• Submissions close September 22, 2025 (Ready? Submit here)
• Questions? Email editors@friendsjournal.org

One of the most googled searches about Friends is “What do Quakers believe?” It’s the theme of our upcoming December 2025 issue and a very reasonable question that is surprisingly hard to answer both simply and accurately. We try, only to find ourselves devolving into history lessons or hedging our answers with weak phrases like “for me…” or “for my type of Friend…” Once upon a time, not so long ago really, a certain kind of confident Friend might give answers that applied to one’s own yearly meeting’s Quaker experience, but in an age of instant communication and easy world travel, it seems rather arrogant to claim any one of us can actually speak for the global diversity of Friends.

On the other hand, is it its own kind of tyranny to demand we find commonalities? What’s wrong with having a subset of Friends that holds a clearly defined identity? The many schisms among Friends, past and present, attest to strong, well-articulated beliefs that their adherents felt were essential to Quakerism as they understood it.

Quakers began with a critique of creeds—those succinct, easily memorized statements of faith that make most churches’ doctrine clear and tidy. What we believe has always been a slippery question, made more so by divisions and conflict within our religious society. Is this history all that ties us together today?

How do you answer this question? Have you found a way to describe our beliefs that covers most if not all Quakers? Do you answer with classic principles of Quakerism or with the varied practices of actual Friends in your area? All of us have different influences. How do we know which are part of our Quaker identity and which aren’t? Is it even a question to ask? And how in all this do we take into account those Friends whose beliefs differ from our own?

Learn more general information at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.

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Diciembre de 2025: ¿En qué creemos?

Finaliza el lunes 22 de Septiembre de 2025 a las 23:59

Los cuáqueros comenzaron con una crítica de los credos: declaraciones de fe concisa y fáciles de memorizar que aclaran y ordenan la doctrina de la mayoría de las iglesias. Nuestras creencias siempre han sido una pregunta ambigua, agravada por las divisiones y los conflictos dentro de nuestra sociedad religiosa. ¿Hay algo que nos une en la fe? ¿O es imposible o incluso desaconsejable buscar esta unidad en el siglo XXI? Cómo articulamos y promovemos nuestras creencias incluso cuando entran en conflicto con las de otros cuáqueros? ¿Cómo entendemos a los cuáqueros cuyas creencias difieren?

Información clave:

• Extensión: 1,200 - 2500 palabras.
• Fecha límite de recepción: 22 de Septiembre de 2025.
• Preguntas? Email, editors@friendsjournal.org

Para más información visite Friendsjournal.org/submissions