The Shanghai Literary Review accepts submissions for TSLR Online on a rolling basis throughout the year. Each autumn, we also have a no-fee submission period for our print magazine. The submission window for TSLR9 (2025) will be announced at the end of summer 2024.

We are interested in art and writing about urbanism, globalism, identity, and transnationalism, though by no means should submissions be limited to those topics. We'll publish a good story about cats in Africa if it floors us. Selected works will be published online and/or in print.

Please note that we do not accept genre writing: romance, science fiction, crime, fantasy, etc. We do accept literary works that can bend genres to a degree. But TSLR is a home for literary writing.

Visual artists who want to submit more than one piece—please upload either a zip file of your pieces, or upload them into one submission. Please do not submit multiple times for different pieces.

Despite an overwhelming number of submissions, we aim to reply to all submitters.

$4.00
$4.00

Fiction - less than 5,000 words

Flash Fiction - less than 500 words

$4.00
$4.00
Non-Fiction & Essay - less than 5,000 words
Flash Non-Fiction - less than 500 words


$4.00
$4.00
Book Review - preliminary proposals only, of no more than 1 page
$4.00
$4.00
Poetry - 2 poems submission limit per person


$4.00
$4.00
Translation - translation into English of any poetry, essay or short fiction from Asia, or vice versa, along with the original text


$4.00
$4.00

Visual Art - photography, video, photo essay, collage, painting, sketch, etc.


NOTE: You are allowed to submit up to 20 pieces of visual work.


Internal workshopping for TSLR Editors by TSLR Editors. Not for public use.
The Shanghai Literary Review