Submissions to the Blood Tree Literature Issue 17 contest "The Climate Issue" will be open from April 2-30, 2026!
Prizes: 1st Place - $75 USD, 2nd Place - $50 USD, 3rd Place $25 USD, Honourable Mentions - $10-20 USD per our standard honorariums
The Climate Issue, July 2026
Earth is in a climate crisis – literal climate, political climate, literary climate (looking at you, AI slop). From the deepest gems within this planet’s mantle to the endless expanse of outer space, our gorgeous world is reaping the consequences of human waste, greed, ignorance, and indifference. That’s why, for our summertime themed contest, we’re asking for work exploring the earth here at its pressure point.
We want your fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid writing around natural beauty and unnatural disaster, the life cycle of growth, and the gravity of change. Show us stories on a slippery slope, poems prepping for the apocalypse, essays that restore hope and inspire action, pieces that recycle anxiety and rage into world wonders on the page. Evoke through the environment and preserve ecosystems in ink. Send us your nature writing. Share your seedling dreams.
All of our general guidelines apply. For all our submission guidelines, please visit our website. We include information on honorariums, rights, types of work we do & don't consider at this time, and more. Please note that abusive or derogatory submissions are not allowed — not now, not ever. BTL is a pro-choice, trans-inclusive, anti-racist publication. AI-generated works are strictly prohibited.
Contest submission fee: $7 USD (or $15 USD for feedback). Submission fees allow us to maintain our Submittable and website/domain, as well as be able to pay contributors. If our fee is a barrier to submitting to BTL, we now offer a fee-waived week at the beginning of our sub call with a cap of 20 hybrid subs and 30 collective poetry and prose submissions, as well as a no-questions-asked fee-waived sub link upon request past the free period.
Contest winners and honourable contributors will be announced in June. At that time, we will also share our selection of charitable organization(s) that BTL will be donating to as part of this issue’s thematic focus on nature and environmentalism. The Climate Issue is slated to release on our website in July.
We look forward to reading your work!