Illuminations 38 has just been published and contributors should receive their copies by early July, 2024. Featuring a beautifully dignified image of "Saint Septima" by artist-performer Natalie Daise, the issue contains the usual eclectic range of outstanding poetry, with poems and prose from all over the US and around the world, including translations of two poems by Spanish poet Jose Maria Molina Caballero. The translator of these two poems, Louis Bourne, passed away in December 2023. Louis had been associated with Illuminations  as translator and poet since 1989, and issue 39 is thus dedicated to his memory in grateful appreciation for his many contributions. 

Illuminations is now accepting poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction submissions for Issue 40, to be published in June 2025. The new issue is an entirely open one. If you are interested in submitting your work, please find our guidelines here. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2025. We have pretty much taken the month of June off, but will resume reading of submissions from mid-July 2024 on.

For those of you wishing to know more about the kind of poetry Illuminations has published over the last 40 years, there may be some interest in checking out the Illuminations Facebook page where in the COVID-summer of 2020 I completed a set of readings of the magazine's "Greatest Hits" from 1982 till now. The set of recordings should be an interesting analog to the digital repository now available through EBSCO. (https://www.facebook.com/illuminationsmag?ref_type=bookmark)

Also in addition to the print issues of the magazine, Illuminations  is maintaining its blog-site that currently features work that addresses the theme of race in the United States begun in issue 31. This series, including poems by  Martin Espada, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Safiya Sinclair, was kicked off by a powerful essay by Brenda Marie Osbey, entitled "Fallen at Charleston" (http://blogs.cofc.edu/illuminations/2016/10/05/fallen-at-charleston/). If you would like to contribute to this series of electronically-published material, please contact the editor, Simon Lewis, at lewiss@cofc.edu.

Illuminations made its first appearance in Columbia, South Carolina in 1982 under the editorship of Peter MacMillan. The issue featured poems by Seamus Heaney, Stephen Spender, and newcomer Sam Boone. Subsequently edited from England, Japan, and Tanzania, the magazine returned to South Carolina in 1996. Over these many years Illuminations has remained consistently true to its mission to publish new writers alongside some of the world’s finest, including Nadine Gordimer, James Merrill, Carol Ann Duffy, Dennis Brutus, Allen Tate, interviews with Tim O’Brien, and letters from Flannery O’Connor and Ezra Pound. A number of new poets whose early work appeared in Illuminations have gone on to win prizes and accolades, and we at Illuminations sincerely value the chance to promote the work of emerging writers. 

(July 2024)

$2.20
$2.20
Submit to Short fiction
Since August 1st, 2014, Illuminations has once again been accepting submissions. As a magazine devoted primarily to poetry we publish only one or two pieces of short fiction and/or non-fiction in any given year, and sometimes publish none at all. Please make sure that anything you send us has not been published elsewhere already and is not currently under consideration elsewhere. In the case of a piece translated from a language other than English, please send us the original along with your translation (this is for review purposes only; we generally publish the translation only).
$2.20
$2.20
Submit to Non-fiction
Since August 1st, 2014, Illuminations has once again been accepting submissions. As a magazine devoted primarily to poetry we publish only one or two pieces of short fiction and/or non-fiction in any given year, and sometimes publish none at all. Please make sure that anything you send us has not been published elsewhere already and is not currently under consideration elsewhere. In the case of a piece translated from a language other than English, please send us the original along with your translation (this is for review purposes only; we generally publish the translation only).
$2.20
$2.20
Submit to Poetry
Since August 1st, 2014, Illuminations has again been accepting submissions of poetry. Please send no more than six poems at a time. Please do not send poems that have been published already elsewhere or that are currently under consideration elsewhere. In the case of translations of poems originally written in languages other than English, please send a copy of the original along with the translation (this is for purposes of review; we generally publish only the translation).
Illuminations