Please read submission guidelines located under the 'Submit' tab on The Adroit Journal's website.
Prose - up to 3 pieces at a time, 9,000 words maximum (across pieces).
Poetry - up to 6 poems at a time, no length limits.
Art - up to 6 pieces at a time, both black/white & color accepted.
Click here to read our current issue, available online.
When we are open to Poetry, Prose, and Art submissions, you will find the categories available for submission below.
*Please include a third-person bio in your cover letter for submission.*
Thank you for your interest in participating in the 2024 Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.
About the Program
Now in its twelfth year, The Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program is an online program that pairs established writers with high school students (including graduating seniors) and gap year students (Classes of ’23 or ’24) interested in learning more about the creative writing processes of drafting, redrafting and editing.
The 2024 program will cater to poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction/memoir. The aim of the mentorship program is not formalized instruction, but rather an individualized, flexible, and often informal correspondence. Poetry students will share weekly work with mentors and peers, while fiction and creative nonfiction/memoir students will share biweekly work with mentors and peers.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW OUR 2024 MENTORSHIP INFO BOOKLET!
WE ARE CURRENTLY OPEN TO 2024 MENTORSHIP PROGRAM APPLICATIONS!
The student application deadline for the 2024 summer mentorship program is March 31, 2024 at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time (PST).
The 2024 program will last from June 24th until July 29th.
The Application
STUDENT WRITER APPLICATION PROCESS
The application for this year’s mentorship program consists of four parts: three Application Essays, a Writing Sample, an Optional Academic Transcript, and an Optional Additional Information Section.
Please click here to view the Application Essays template for application to the 2024 Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program. Please note that you must respond to all three questions for your application to be considered.
We encourage you to double space your responses and include a page break between them, making sure to also include the full question to which you are responding above each answer. (P.S. We find that conventional fonts like Times New Roman or Garamond often work best!)
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE ADROIT MENTORSHIP 2024 APPLICATION ESSAY TEMPLATE.
Essay #1: In approx. 450-600 words, explore your impulse to write—give us the who, what, where, when, and/or why behind your passion for the genre (or genres) of creative writing to which you are applying. Perhaps you’ll shed light on why you started writing. Or take us on a backstage tour behind your current writing process(es). Or dissect the way(s) writing fits into your life—academically, extracurricularly, philosophically, socially, and/or artistically. Or tell us about how your favorite writers inspire you. Please feel encouraged to reference work(s) from your sample(s) in your response. You might also reference any writing project(s) you have undertaken and/or how you hope your writing might develop in craft and/or theme as a mentorship student this summer.
Essay #2: In approx. 350-500 words, introduce us to a work of writing or art that moves you. Why does it move you? What’s kept it stuck in your head? Examples of selected work may include a poem, series of linked poems, or poetry collection; a short story, short story collection, or novella, or even an excerpt/chapter of a novel; an essay, essay collection, or memoir; a song, EP, or album (of any genre); a literary magazine issue; a piece or series of visual art; a movie; or that idea of yours that immediately sprang to mind! If it’s even arguably art but moving and meaningful to you, go for it. Note: Given length constraints, if you select a collection of work (e.g. a collection of poems, stories, or essays; a lit mag issue; etc.), please center your discussion around 3-4 specific pieces of the work.
Essay #3: In approx. 150-200 words, what draws you to the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program? Why mentorship? What excites you about our program specifically? How might working with an Adroit mentor support you as a writer?
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The Writing Sample should consist of between four and five poems (max of ten pages, single-spaced, with each poem starting on a new page) or between eight and twelve double-spaced pages of fiction or creative nonfiction (excerpts are acceptable).
Students who wish to apply to multiple genres may do so by utilizing both the First Choice and Second Choice options in the mentorship application form linked below. Important: If you wish to apply to more than one genre, please include two complete writing samples in one file, one for each genre, with your second-choice genre following the first. Please abide by writing sample guidelines for each genre and note that we consider all genres independent of their ranking on your app.
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The Academic Transcript is an optional component that is primarily used as a verification of student status. Transcripts may be official or unofficial and should ideally be in PDF form. There is no need to upload multiple transcripts if you’ve changed schools during your high school career—your latest transcript will suffice. If not sent with your application, a transcript, or other proof of student-status, is required when accepting a cohort spot.
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The Additional Information Section is an optional component included in the application as an opportunity to share any information that you feel is pertinent to your background and/or mentorship candidacy. Please upload no more than two pages as a .DOC or .PDF file in this section. You may treat this section as an opportunity to upload a resume/activity sheet if you would like, or you can instead share more about situational factors that you have not shared elsewhere. In offering this section, we hope that you will not feel pressure to fit, squish, or force any content into other areas of your application. Thanks very much for your interest in the mentorship program; we look forward to seeing what you've got!
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You may read our summer mentorship FAQ in full here. Please direct additional questions to mentorship@theadroitjournal.org.
Tuition for participation in the full program is $450/student. Please note that there is no application fee. Furthermore, we want to assure applicants for whom tuition will be a barrier that fee remission and financial aid is available. Financial need will be addressed entirely separately, and will not be an influencing factor on the mentorship’s admission decisions. Program administrators and application screeners will not have access to financial need information until after admission decisions have been made.
Questions?
*CLICK HERE FOR OUR 2024 MENTORSHIP INFORMATION BOOKLET*
Visit us online: www.theadroitjournal.org/mentorship
Contact: John Allen Taylor, Program Director | mentorship@theadroitjournal.org
Please submit up to six poems in one document via our Submittable page (adroit.submittable.com). We encourage you to submit prose (fiction and CNF), art, and/or photography in addition to poetry.
Please no multiple submissions. Additional submissions will be returned unread.
No AI-generated or AI-assisted work will be considered or even tolerated. This means you can use AI to research or make notes on a poem, but every line, word and punctuation mark must come from you or if it is inspired by another poem or resource, you must provide attribution.
N.B. PLEASE SUBMIT MULTIPLE POEMS IN ONE DOCUMENT.
Happy submitting, and thanks in advance!
Please submit up to three prose pieces in one document via our Submittable page (adroit.submittable.com). We invite you to submit poetry, CNF, art, and/or photography in addition to fiction.
Prose submissions may be up to 9,000 words per entry of between 1-3 pieces. Please submit no more than two (2) times per genre per reading period. Additional submissions will be returned unread.
No AI-generated or AI-assisted work will be considered or even tolerated. This means you can use AI to research or make notes on a piece, but every sentence must come from you or if it is inspired by another author or resource, you must provide attribution or sourcing.
Please include a word count at the top of each submission.
N.B. PLEASE SUBMIT MULTIPLE PROSE PIECES IN ONE DOCUMENT.
Happy submitting, and thanks in advance!
Please submit up to three CNF prose pieces in one document via our Submittable page (adroit.submittable.com). We invite you to submit poetry, art, and/or photography in addition to prose.
Prose submissions may be up to 9,000 words per entry of between 1-3 pieces. Please submit no more than two (2) times per genre per reading period. Additional submissions will be returned unread.
No AI-generated or AI-assisted work will be considered or even tolerated. This means you can use AI to research or make notes on a piece, but every sentence must come from you or if it is inspired by another author or resource, you must provide attribution or sourcing.
Please include a word count at the top of each submission.
N.B. PLEASE SUBMIT MULTIPLE PROSE PIECES IN ONE DOCUMENT.
Happy submitting, and thanks in advance!
Please submit UP TO SIX full-color images (unless intentionally greyscale in the first place) via our submission manager (adroit.submittable.com). Please make all image submissions .jpg or .png, and as high-quality as possible. Image scans or screenshots are alright for submission (for the purpose of considerably lowering the file size), but please have access to higher-quality versions the art/photos prior to submission.
Submitted art may have previously been recognized for an award, but should not be previously published. Also, we DO accept simultaneous art submissions, but expect you to withdraw your submission(s) if accepted elsewhere promptly after the acceptance elsewhere.
Please submit no more than two (2) times per genre per reading period. Additional submissions will be returned unread.
No AI-generated or AI-assisted work will be considered or even tolerated.
First off: please familiarize yourself with the journal by visiting our About page, and perhaps also an issue or two.
OPEN POSITIONS:
We are currently closed for staff applications. Please check back soon! If you have applied for a role recently and have not yet heard back from us, we apologize for our delay. We will get back to you soon!
Click here to view our Call for Interviews & Reviews, full of titles we'd especially love to see covered.
Thank you for your interest in interviewing or reviewing for us.
Interviews & Reviews -- we are currently accepting completed reviews and interviews for consideration on our blog.
At this time, we have an aesthetic preference for interviews.
IMPORTANT: Please consult our style guide for reviews and/or our style guide for interviews prior to submission. Thank you!