Call for Submissions

For our upcoming Spring/Summer 2026 issue, we are seeking magical stories from the Charles River Basin. What mysteries and wonders live close to home? What spine-tingling, jaw-dropping stories or visuals make you believe in magic?

• Poetry: Incantations, spells, and charms

• How-tos and DIYs: love potion recipes, instructions for your own daily or seasonal rituals

• On-the-nose magic: Dispatches from your local psychics, witches, magicians, and other practitioners of magic

• Portals: Take us down the rabbit hole. Where are the secret gardens and haunted houses? What exists just alongside this realm?

• Making the familiar strange: What small signs of magic do we take for granted in the natural world? What is happening this spring and summer that feels like alchemy or metamorphosis?

• Magical thinking: What is not as it seems? What defies ordinary logic?

Make your submissions strange, specific, and rooted in Greater Boston’s landscape / ecology / folklore / history /culture.

As always, we will prioritize work that fits best with the season of the issue (Spring/Summer in the Charles River Basin). 

Eligible Regions

All submissions must be based on a specific place within the Charles River Basin, Greater Boston, MA.

Arlington — Ashland — Bellingham — Belmont — Boston — Brookline — Cambridge — Dedham — Dover — Foxborough — Franklin — Holliston — Hopedale — Hopkinton — Lexington — Lincoln — Medfield — Medway — Mendon — Milford — Millis — Natick — Needham — Newton — Norfolk — Sherborn — Somerville — Walpole — Waltham — Watertown — Wayland — Wellesley — Weston — Westwood — Wrentham

FORMATS

We accept a very wide range of formats, including personal essays, reporting, poetry, paintings, drawings, multimedia, maps, field guides, recipes, instructions.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Applicants will be notified of their submission status within 90 days. Those chosen for publication will receive a free copy of the issue via snail mail.