[Skip to Content]

Submission Guidelines & Editorial Policy

The Healing Muse, the annual journal of literary and visual art published by the Center for Bioethics and Humanities. We welcome fiction, poetry, narratives, memoirs, drawings, photography, and graphic art, particularly but not exclusively focusing on themes of medicine and healing.

Submissions for Volume 24 are open!

Submissions are collected and juried from September 1st through April 15th. See below for submission guidelines. 

We recommend that you read excerpts from one or two of our past issues before you submit.

Submittable

All submissions for The Healing Muse 24 will be collected via Submittable only, an easy-to-use online submission tool. Please click the button below to submit your work.

Guidelines

  • Please submit only once during the submission period. Simultaneous submissions are accepted. 
  • Poetry submissions: Limit up to five poems, with no more than 10 pages total. Word counts are not necessary for poetry submissions.  
  • Prose submissions: Limit of one essay. Identify piece as fiction or nonfiction, type double-spaced, and put word count on the first page (2,500 word max). Pieces that exceed the 2,500 word limit will not be reviewed
  • Visual artists must submit an electronic file at 300 dpi. We accept both color and black and white artwork. Visual art is not reviewed until after July 1. We thank you for your patience.

  • Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they have not appeared previously in print or electronic format (including the Internet). Artworks are considered with the understanding that they have not appeared previously in print. We ask authors whose work is accepted to sign a statement declaring that their work has not been previously published by them or under another name. We screen submissions for plagiarism. We require First North American Serial Rights (the rights to the written work return to the author after the journal is published). We reserve the right to edit the work to be consistent with the journal's specifications.

  • Confidentiality. The privacy of patients and clients of health care practitioners should be protected. Physicians and health care practitioners who write about their patients must alter identifying details and characteristics.

  • Contributors receive two complimentary copies of the issue in which their work appears; additional copies are available at a reduced rate.

Questions?

Please email us at thehealingmuse@gmail.com.

Top