The Stinging Fly is a Dublin-based print magazine and small press. Our mission is to seek out, nurture, publish and promote the very best new writers and new writing.

The Stinging Fly magazine

We publish new, previously unpublished work by Irish and international writers. We have a particular interest in publishing new writers and in promoting the short story. 

We publish two issues of the magazine each year, in May and November. We currently accept submissions of short stories, essays, poems, novel extracts and excerpts from longer works of nonfiction.

We are always excited to read new writers and to hear new voices in literature. Many of the writers we publish have never been published before.

We believe that a proactive approach to diversity and inclusivity is important in redressing imbalances of representation and diversity, both in the pages of our magazine and in the wider cultural landscape. As such, we strongly encourage submissions by writers from underrepresented areas of society.

We will next be open for submissions between:

Wednesday May 15th and Wednesday May 29th (for our Winter 2024 issue)
Wednesday November 13th and Wednesday November 27th (for our Summer 2025 issue).
Submissions will close at 5pm (Irish time). 

Please note we no longer accept simultaneous submissions.

The Submittable link for each submission round is only available on our website’s Submission Guidelines page during the submission period.

Before submitting work to us, please read our Submission Guidelines carefully.


The Stinging Fly Press

The Stinging Fly Press publishes single-author short-story collections and multiple-author anthologies. We are not seeking submissions for the press at the moment. If you have written a collection, we advise that you submit a story to the magazine to begin with.


To apply for a place:

Send 10 to 12 pages from a current work-in-progress.

Include your name, the title of the work, and the word count of the complete work on the first page.

All submissions should ideally be in Word doc or docx format.  Please use 1.5 or double line spacing, font size: 12pt, and insert page numbers.

All applicants must supply a cover note with details of their current writing project(s) and telling us how they believe they will benefit from participating in the workshop.
 

To apply for a place:

Send us two short stories or up to 30 pages from your current work-in-progress.

Include your name and the title of the work on the first page.

All submissions should ideally be in Word doc or docx format.  Please use 1.5 or double line spacing, font size: 12pt, and insert page numbers.

All applicants must supply a cover note with details of their current writing project and telling us how they believe they will benefit from participating in the workshop.
 

The Stinging Fly