Submission Guidelines

Submission deadline for this year is March 3rd, 2025. If you submit an entry after the deadline it will be considered for the 2026 magazine.  

Simultaneous submissions welcome, given you withdraw your submission as soon as it is accepted by another magazine. Multiple submissions encouraged. We do not accept physical submissions; please email them to thepearl@coe.edu. You must be a Coe student to submit.

Prose submissions

Maximum of 1,200 words per individual piece. Limit of 5 prose submissions per person. Prose submissions should be formatted in 12pt Garamond font (the font size may be changed in publication). All pieces should be submitted on individual .docx documents. 

Poetry submissions

Any student may submit up to 7 poems on a separate documents.  Poems should be formatted in 12pt Garamond font (font size may be changed in publication; lineation will be respected).  All pieces should be submitted on individual .docx documents. (For pieces with specific formatting, the editors will reach out to you and ask for your permission before making any potentially artistically-relevant changes)

Photography & artwork submissions

Any student may submit up to 7 photographs or art pieces in separate .jpg files. Images of low resolution will not be considered for publication (unless it is intentional, then include that in your submission email). 

All submissions 

Include the files containing your submissions alongside a 10-25 word artist bio, introducing yourself in the third person. These typically contain your year, majors, and a fun fact about yourself. You can see last year's edition for examples of these, there are many copies in the Writing Center. 

If you want to submit in multiple categories you can submit up to 7 pieces in total. For example you cannot submit 7 poems and 3 essays, but can submit 4 poems and 3 essays. 

Feel free to visit the Coe Writing Center with any of these pieces! A team of these consultants will anonymously grade your work when you submit it to us (they will not know it is by you), so you may want to get it looked at beforehand!

Feel free to email us with any questions you might have about the contest!

We are always accepting submissions.