Submission Guidelines
Submissions for October to December 2026 are not open yet.
ANTAE is an open-access creative writing journal, freely available to institutional and non-institutional readers alike. This journal provides immediate access to its content on the principle that making writing freely available to the public supports a greater visibility of creative endeavours and global exchange of knowledge, emotions, perspectives, and visions.
ANTAE's advisors, editors, copy-editors, and proof-readers make no financial gain from the process of publishing your work. Submissions to our general issues are free.
Please note that we cannot accept work that is simultaneously under review elsewhere. Reviewing a piece that is eventually withdrawn is an unnecessary expenditure of our limited resources.
There are three general submission windows open annually:
1 June to 31 August
1 October to 31 December
1 February to 30 April
Work sent to us outside of our submission windows cannot be considered for publication. No feedback can be provided on unfinished drafts.
Writers can submit only once per submission window. Multiple submissions across the categories listed below is not allowed.
ANTAE does not accept translations except from Maltese into English.
We do not accept AI-generated or AI-assisted work; the multiple dangers of this are well established in this article by The Authors Guild (11 May 2026).
Work may be rejected solely due to the volume of submissions, and should not be taken as necessarily indicative of a lack of quality. Works not written in English cannot be accepted.
From time to time, submission windows for special issues, events, and competitions may open. Follow us here and on social media to keep yourself updated.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their own websites) following the publication process, as it can lead to productive exchanges as well as greater engagement with the published work.
The selection of creative work for publication is based on a three-stage process, involving preliminary evaluation by the editors, review by the University of Malta's Department of English, and subsequent refereeing by members of the Advisory Board. Antae reserves the right to reject work at any of these stages of evaluation.
Send your work as a Word file through the form. Your name, country and a biographical note of up to 90 words come from your profile.
- No identifying information should be visible on the work itself.
- If necessary, such as for formatting reasons, a PDF document may accompany the Word document for reference.
- Font should be Times New Roman (12-point) unless creative necessities dictate otherwise.
- Other documents may be needed depending on the type of submission you're interested in.
- Full colour images which are in the Creative Commons, or for which permissions have been sought and obtained, may feature in the submitted work. Images used should be in JPEG or PNG format, with a minimum resolution of 300dpi. Original art is, of course, fully permissible.
- Submissions made for a particular issue of Antae may be considered for publication in later issues of the journal, in which case contributors will be advised accordingly.
- It will be assumed that authors will have retained a copy of their submitted work.
Prose is 1,000 to 3,000 words.
Flash is up to 600 words.
Your prose piece can be of any genre/style. So long as it is within the word limit outlined above, we accept extracts from longer works.
For other modes of writing, we leave it up to you to follow the conventions of that mode. For instance, nonfiction which makes use of pre-existing research or data should use a referencing system.
Researched nonfiction and academic articles should be about creative writing, or have a special focus on it, not other topics.
Script is 1,500 to 4,500 words.
The count includes stage or camera directions and other conventions.
Your drama piece can be of any genre/style. So long as it abides with the word limit outlined above, we accept extracts from longer works (ideally presented as a complete act/acts).
No more than four pieces may be submitted at a time (that is, in one submission window). Upload each piece as its own file.
Your poems can be of any genre/style. We accept extracts from longer works.
There is no set length for poems. However, no more than one poem may be submitted if it exceeds three A4 pages.
Creative criticism can take many forms. As such, there are no pre-set guidelines. Use your best judgment when submitting your work. You can also consult our past issues to see what creative-critical works have been accepted in the past.
If your work makes use of academic conventions, follow the MHRA Style Guide.
Antae accepts reviews of creative works (novels, essay collections, poetry anthologies, plays, and so on) which are published in English, Maltese, or any other language.
It is always advised that those interested in reviewing a creative work contact us before undertaking the review. If you would like your work reviewed with Antae, do feel free to contact us.
Reviews should come in the form of formal prose and may make use of academic conventions. If footnotes and citations are going to be used, follow the conventions set out by the MHRA Style Guide.
Review is 500 to 1,000 words.
Review essay is 2,000 to 4,000 words.
A review focuses solely on one work; a review essay offers a wider context of the work, referring to other works or bringing in literary criticism and theory.
If your review essay makes use of academic conventions, follow the MHRA Style Guide.
It may be the case that your submission does not fit neatly into any of the above categories, such as would be the case for interviews, artwork, videos, and so on.
In this case, liaise with us on antae@um.edu.mt in order to see whether Antae can publish your work.