Do you accept unsolicited submissions?

Yes. However, we continue to be overwhelmed by submissions so response time can take 2-3 months. If you would like a response in 3 to 5 days, please consider using our FAST PASS system.

How do I submit?

1. Read the instructions below to make sure you are submitting the type of writing we are looking for. The best short story in the world will get turned down if it isn’t the kind of thing we are looking for. Basically, we are looking for The Trolley Problem in short story form. “The Waiting Room” is a GREAT example of the kind of thoughtful, well-written story we love to publish. “As You Wish” is a good example of the type of children’s story we publish. This video from our editor will give you more details. (Extended Version)

2. Proofread your work. We stop reading at the 3rd glaring typo. We aren’t kidding. We get a surprising number of submissions with typos and random font changes.

3. Consider using our FAST PASS system to “jump to the front of the line” and be read next. If you choose FAST PASS, pay via our online pay form before completing Step #4. (Secure Payment) Or, if you are a yearly digital or print subscriber, your story is always moved to the front of the line!

4. Submit via our online submissions form.

5. Your story will go to a first reader. If it clears the first reader, it will go to the larger group for discussion. Assuming you clear that, your story goes to our editor for final approval. This means, generally speaking, no news is good news… (If you use our FAST PASS system, you skip all this, and your submission goes right to our editor to read and decide.)

6. If your story is accepted, we will send you our author agreement - a simple contract granting us the right to publish your story. Feel free to take a look at this agreement now. If you find terms you won’t be comfortable with, don’t submit your story to us! t will save us both a heap of time.

7. Typically, your story is published (1) in the magazine, then (2) is available for consideration in our yearly paperback “best of [year]” anthology that comes out in the Spring, and (3) sometimes on our website.* Additionally, your story will be considered for inclusion in future (4) podcast discussions and/or as an (5) audiobook podcast reading.

8. No more than three submissions per six months.

What are you looking for?

Your story must spur discussions. It must require the reader to expand their mind and involve ethical questions.

Rule of Thumb: If you know the right answer, but don't do it because you lack courage, that's probably a HARD CHOICE. If you don't actually even know what the right answer is, that's an ETHICAL CHOICE (and what we publish). Ethical Question Quiz

Our editor has made this video, explaining what we are looking for. In short, your writing can be any genre and from any perspective, as long as it stimulates ethical and philosophical discussions.

If you need an example, read “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by the amazing Ursula K. Le Guin. Another way to think of it is this, we are looking for The Trolley Problem in short story form. A great example of something we have published is “The Waiting Room.” “As You Wish” is a good example of the type of children’s story we publish.

If you think more in movies, think Ex Machina, Her, Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Looper. For TV, think The Good Place, Westworld, and Star Trek: TNG.

Better yet, listen to our podcast!

The point is, we don’t care if it’s sci-fi, fantasy, romance, contemporary women’s fiction, historical fiction, western, or whatever, but the short story should have a deeper point for a longer discussion. 90% of what we turn down is not because of the quality of the writing, but because it’s simply not the kind of thing we publish.

If you just want the hard stats, our acceptance rate is around 3%, and stories in the 2500-4000-word range seem to do better with our readers.

We do not accept novels, poems, or artwork.

Are there ethical question stories you are not looking for?

There are a few common topic submissions. We aren’t saying we won’t accept more (we will), but they would have to have a special twist. All things being equal, we are more apt to take a new idea over a “yet another…” idea we have seen before. Submissions we see weekly include:

1. People who have their brains uploaded to the internet cloud to live forever.

2. A “does sick Grandma have the right to die” story.

3. Also, while we are respectful towards all beliefs, but we are not accepting overtly religious or purely proselytizing based stories. That said, we understand Western culture has a long and rich history founded in Judeo/Christian beliefs that inform our value systems.

4. We will never publish stories referencing modern political or pop-culture names, because it causes people to overlay their own pre-existing bias and opinions and stop thinking critically about what you are trying to really say. Replace modern names with fake names and universal truths those people represent and we are good to go.

5. We are not likely to publish a story that is a straight copy/paste from a Chat-GPT style conversation. There is nothing wrong with the idea, but we’ve published one already, and really, you are better off writing the story instead of sending us the AI conversation about the story an having us infer what happened.

What length are you looking for?

1. Children’s Stories: under 1,500 words

2. Young Adult: under 3,500 words

3. Adult: 1,500-7,000** words

What are the submission formatting requirements?

1. Submit as a .pdf

2. 12 point font

3. 1.25-2.0 spacing (we struggle with single spaced)

4. Basically, just format it so it’s easy to read. We will do our best either way, but your odds of getting accepted are better if we aren’t struggling to read compressed text.

What does this pay?

Accepted short stories from unsolicited submissions are paid a one-time amount of $75 with no future royalties.

Do you accept reprints and/or simultaneous submissions?

Yes, but… It is one thing for your story to be behind a paywall or in a print magazine, it’s another thing for it to be freely available on a website. If it is on a website and can be found and read online via a google search we are not interested in it.

Also, regarding reprints, make sure you are not in violation of any other agreements you have signed.

What happens after my story is accepted?

Actually, quite a bit! Generally speaking, here is the lifecycle of a story we accept. No, you cannot opt out of parts of this cycle.

1. After about 3-6 months, we publish the story in print and digital in our magazine. The print version is available as print-on-demand from Amazon and can be ordered from your local bookstore. The ebook version gets emailed to our direct subscribers, as well as made available for purchase via Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Bookshop.org and about ten other places. It is also made available via the Libby app. It is not posted on our website.

2. At the start of the following year after it is published, we will potentially republish your story as part of our yearly “Best of” anthology. So, for example, if you were in our April, 2025 issue, you would be considered for our “Best of 2025” anthology coming out in February, 2026.

3. Your story will also be considered for our themed anthologies. We typically publish a few of these a year. So, if your story is about AI Ethics, we would consider including your story in a collection of “Technology Ethics” short stories in a themed edition.

4. Then, after about three years, we will publish your story a final time on our Substack. Right now, half of our stories we publish are free for the two weeks, then go behind a paywall. The other half start off right behind the paywall.

5. We have also, in the past, done podcasts discussing individual stories, and audiobook podcasts reading the stories. In a few cases, we have even made lessons plans from the stories for teachers. We may even use your story in our Meetup discussion groups. And last, but not least, we have a relationship with Philosophy Now where they, two or three times a year, syndicate stories we have published under the After Dinner Conversation brand.

How long will it take to hear back?

We continue to be a victim of our own success and get more and more submissions every month. As a result, read/response time is running about 2-3 months. Consider no news, good news. Rejections are easy (and fast). Potential acceptance means going to a larger committee for discussion, and that takes a bit of time. Check/report your submissions on Duotrope.

We also have a “Fast Pass” submission process that gets you priority reading for $25 and a response in 3-5 business days. Your story will go directly to our Editor in Chief (the final story decision-maker) to read, and he will write you a personal email regarding your story.

Why are so many of the stories you publish science fiction?

We would love to publish fantasy, biography, western, horror, erotica, etc. We just don’t get many submissions in these genres that fit the “trolley problem” guidelines, but if they did, we would happily publish them.

What % of your published stories come from the website submission process?

100%. Frankly, it drives us kind of crazy that there are literary magazine publishers out there that, technically, accept unsolicited submissions, yet primarily publish from solicited submissions. The only way anyone gets in our magazine is by blind submission.

Do you accept AI submissions?

After Dinner Conversation does not accept writing generated with AI software because our literary press and magazine are venues for intentional and thoughtful human creativity. We understand and appreciate that some interesting creative work is being done that explores and exploits these technologies, but it’s not for us at this time.

Can I get feedback on my submission?

Typically, we provide a few sentences of feedback from our volunteer readers with each rejection. If you would like more developed/personalized feedback, we offer a service from our amazing Story Editor for a $80USD fee. Simply purchase Story Feedback and submit via our regular process. You will hear from her shortly thereafter.

Do you need readers?

Yes! There is no better way to improve your writing than by reading other authors’ writing! We would love to have more volunteer readers! Just email us at info@afterdinnerconversation.com to learn more.

* After Dinner Conversation generally adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style guidelines. If your story is accepted, you agree to feedback regarding light editing from After Dinner Conversation editors, where needed.

** For some reason, shorter submissions (2,500-4,500 words) tend to fare best. With anything longer than 5,000 words, you should assume we may read just the few pages and start skimming, as it's rare that we will publish something that long. It’s nothing personal; it’s just that longer submissions tend not to have enough ethical-question “density” and the length comes from being verbose and descriptive rather than adding ideas of substance to the story. That said, this is just the trend we see; it is not a requirement. Our acceptance rate is around 3%, although it tends to be much higher for those who have read a few stories from our magazine before submitting!