Submit Work to Dialogue Journal

Dialogue Journal categories of work include articles, personal essays, short fiction, poetry, book reviews, and sermons.

How to submit your work

  1. View submission guidelines: Before submitting work, review the submission guidelines for your category of work. Dialogue also offers a mentorship program for new scholars. View submission guidelines
  2. Create an account: Create an account on Scholastica (if you don’t already have one).
    Register on Scholastica
  3. Upload work: Click “Submit Manuscript” on the Scholastica Dialogue Portal Follow the prompts as needed. Once submitted, you will receive emails with status updates that will let you know if your work has been accepted or rejected. Refer to the submission guidelines for information about timelines.

Submission Guidelines

  • Articles

    Guidelines

    • Articles include original, scholarly research on issues relating to the LDS faith and experience. These may use a variety of methodologies, including history, theology, science, sociology, and more
    • Articles should be between 3,000 and 10,000 words


    Evaluation Process

    • Authors may not submit work that is also under consideration for publication elsewhere
    • Articles are reviewed by at least two volunteer experts in the subject area of the paper.
    • This review can take up to 12 weeks in order to locate qualified Mormon studies reviewers in narrow subfields.
    • Following the subject expert review, the editor and editorial board will make a final decision to accept or reject a paper, and the editor will tentatively schedule publication and inform the author.
    • You will receive an email if you are accepted or rejected.


    *Initial acceptance should not be understood as a guarantee of publication in a certain issue–Dialogue reserves the right to adjust publication schedules based on space available and other considerations.

  • Personal Voices

    Guidelines

    • Personal voices work includes autobiographical nonfiction essays about the intersections of a personal experience and LDS faith that create an emotional response or resonance in the reader—positive, negative, or whatever it may be. 
    • Please limit your essay to 3,000 words or fewer.
    • Essays must be entirely true. Please do not use composite characters or invented situations or scenes.
    • Please only submit essays that have not been published previously.
    • Please do not include images in the essay.


    Evaluation Process

    • Evaluated by the editor
    • Once accepted for publication, Personal Voices essays are generally published within one year.
  • Poetry
    Guidelines

     

    • Submit up to 5 original, unpublished poems (up to 10 pages) that have some connection to the LDS faith and experience.
    • Each poem should be in a separate .doc file AND separate entry in the submission manager to allow for individual evaluations.

    Evaluation Process

    • Submissions will be evaluated by the Poetry Editor between four and ten weeks after submission.
    • Simultaneous submissions allowed, but please contact the Poetry Editor if any piece has been accepted elsewhere and needs to be withdrawn.
  • Fiction

    Guidelines

    • Mormon fiction refers to work by authors who have a connection, past, present, or generational, with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not to any specific style, genre, setting, or language. The Church itself need not appear as a named institution in a story for it to be Mormon fiction. 
    • All genres accepted, however work inclined toward literary fiction (instead of popular fiction) is favored.
    • No children’s or YA fiction
    • New translations into English of previously published work in other languages are welcome.
    • We prefer pieces between 2500 and 10,000 words. Format in 12 pt, Times New Roman or similar font, double spaced, pages numbered.
    • Racism, homophobia, ageism, ableism, fatphobia, misogyny, etc. are unacceptable and more insidious than submitters sometimes realize. Take extreme care writing outside your identity.
    • Simultaneous submissions are permitted as long as this is noted at submission and the piece is withdrawn immediately if accepted elsewhere.


    Evaluation Process

    • Evaluated by the Fiction Editor
    • Our target for turn-around time from submission to accepting/declining a piece is 90 days. This may change without notice.
    • We cannot provide feedback on submissions.
  • Book Reviews

    Guidelines

    • Book Reviews on books relating to Mormon Studies, Mormon culture, or religious topics that might be of interest to Mormons (and we hope that is an enormous category!) are welcome
    • Book reviewers are generally solicited by the Book Review Editors. If you would like to write a review, please contact Dialogue Journal before submitting to get approval on your book of choice


    Evaluation Process

    • Evaluated by the Editor and Book Review Editors
    • Book Reviews selected for publication will be published on the website. Depending on timeliness and space available, Book Reviews may also get published in the print journal but are not guaranteed
  • Sermons

    Guidelines

    • Sermons from any denomination are welcomed, especially talks delivered in LDS contexts
    • We like to publish sermons that have actually been delivered. 


    Evaluation Process

    • Evaluated by the Editor 
    • Publication decisions are generally made within 8 weeks

Publication Policy

Submissions published in Dialogue, including letters to the editor and brief notes, are covered by our Publication Policy, under which the author retains the copyright in the work and grants Dialogue publication permissions. By submitting work to Dialogue, authors agree to these terms of publication.

Learn more

 

 

Have questions?
Please email [email protected].

Mentorship Program

Dialogue aims to amplify junior, nontraditional, and underrepresented voices in the public sphere and to serve as a venue for a robust conversation about the religious traditions founded by Joseph Smith.

  1. Submit a draft of any category of work to the editor of Dialogue.
  2. If approved, the editor will match you to a professional in the field, who will give feedback and direction about your work.
  3. After refining your work with your mentor, submit the updated work to the editor of Dialogue for consideration for publication.

Dialogue’s editor and board of directors hope that this program will attract a wider range of voices to publish in Dialogue, but also that it will serve as a model for Dialogue’s values of charity, inclusion, and friendliness. Therefore, while we will prioritize submissions from underrepresented groups, we will consider material from any author lacking substantial publishing experience. We hope that the program will lower the barriers of entry into the profound and important conversations about belief, faith, and struggle that Dialogue wishes to foster, and will result in a broader circle of belonging within the Mormon tradition.

Visual Art Submissions

Most art published in Dialogue is solicited by the art editor. Dialogue Journal welcomes visual art submissions that will be considered for publication in the print journal as well as showcased online. For visual art submissions please contact us.

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