Southword

Southword: New International Writing is a print literary journal published twice a year by the Munster Literature Centre. Southword has published the likes of Medbh McGuckian, Helen Ivory, Haruki Murakami, James Lasdun, Kim Addonizio, Tess Gallagher, Colm Tóibín and Vona Groarke. Our summer issue is composed of prizewinning entries from our Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition, Southword Editor’s Poetry Award, Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition, and Subscriber Poetry & Flash Fiction Competitions, as well as specially commissioned work.

Southword 47 Launch

Issues 47 of Southword are now making their way to all current subscribers. join us for The launch of issue 47 as part of Ó Bhéal’s 12th Winter Warmer festival on Friday 22nd November at 2pm in Nano Nagle Place. This event will feature fifteen Cork poets reading from this winter issue as well as the summer issue (46).

Two issues per year starting with our next issue #48 (summer 2025)

If you wish to start your subscription one issue earlier or later than this, please email info@munsterlit.ie after subscribing. This is a recurring subscription (yearly payment) which can be cancelled at any time through your PayPal account, or by contacting us to cancel on your behalf.

By subscribing, you will receive new issues of Southword straight from the printers, as quickly as we will ourselves. Your subscription will also help to provide us with the resources to make Southword even better.

Other perks include access to Southword Online, the precursor to the print journal as you know it now. These 26 issues, which appeared on our website from 2009 – 2018, include ten years of writing from our O’Donoghue poetry competition and Ó Faoláin short story competition. You will also have the opportunity to enter our free-to-enter flash fiction competition and poetry competition exclusively for subscribers. Current subscribers are emailed a link every April and may submit up to three poems and/or three pieces of flash fiction; winners are published in our summer issue and receive the following: 1st Prize €150, 2nd prize €100, 3rd prize €75.

Submit

Unsolicited submissions of poetry and short fiction (for our winter issues) are open annually as follows:

POETRY: 1st ‒ 31st January

FICTION: 1st ‒ 28th February

Our Submittable account limit means that we can only receive 1000 submissions per month, so if we reach this limit before the end of January (for poetry) or February (for fiction), the submission link will automatically close and we won’t be able to accept any further submissions.

Southword pays contributors €50 per poem and €300 per short story. We welcome submissions of up to four poems or one short story (of up to 5000 words) per submission period. If your work has been selected from an unsolicited submission and published in Southword before, we ask that you please don’t submit for one year before submitting again – for example, if you were accepted in the last open submission period (2024) it means you need to skip this one (2025) and wait for the next (2026).

Further Guidelines are available at our submission manager during the our open submission periods.

Individual Print Issues

Southword Online

Issues 16-34 of Southword were published exclusively online. Access to this back catalogue is available to current subscribers. Southword Online (Issues 16-34)