Permafrost Magazine

Dear Permafrost Community,

As of August 15, journal submissions are temporarily closed so that we can catch up on a backlog. We are also revamping the site, the journal, and our processes. If you have a submission pending, you'll hear from us soon.

We plan to open for submissions again on Oct. 1

We apologize for any inconvenience. 

We are deeply grateful for your patience and support!

Permafrost Editors

As the editors of the farthest north literary magazine, we’ve chosen an unconventional, expansive place to live. That, too, is what we seek in your submissions. 

This is especially to say: we are not particularly interested in reading obvious, Alaska-themed work (i.e. snowflakes, polar bear romances, and your tormented ice-capped heartcicles). We get plenty of polar saturation from the Great White North everyday. We want the far-reaching, skittish, and confused/confusing. We want the crystalline and devastating. We want the sickly, the sweet, but not the sickly sweet. We want things to get ugly, or maybe beautiful. Give us the stuff you tucked away in the folder you hesitate to open on the weekdays--the pieces you scour and revise during weekend binges. You know, the intense 3am-on-a-Saturday, ersatz pieces. Push us with your intricate language, your lyrical alchemy. That’s what we’re looking for. Let’s get weird with it. 

We only accept previously unpublished work. We accept simultaneous submissions and you are welcome to send as many submissions as you like, but let us know right away if your submission is accepted elsewhere. We’re looking for flash essays, prose poems, hermit-crab stories, lyric essays, lists, anecdotes about your creepy uncle. All of it. Send us work without boundaries, art that leaves us with questions, and words that resonate with us--train whistles echoing through the valley.