We are looking for:

  Articles about writing and language
  Humorous non-fiction
  Poetry
  Recipes
  Book reviews

 Remember Patchword does not
 accept fiction.

We are interested in receiving articles of interest to writers. These may be practical or theoretical, although the more practical they are, the better chance they have of being published. We also prefer short rather than long, and recommend a maximum of 1000 words, although longer articles may be accepted if they are of sufficient interest. Have a look at our articles section to see what type of writing appeals to us.

We prefer new material, but are willing to consider previously published work.

As we are an internet publication, our readers come from all over the world: try not to be too parochial in your approach. However, we are interested in anything to do with writing and language, and would be delighted to hear about local markets that are not already well documented. Our common language is English, but we are not all limited to one language and we would be interested in hearing about writers' experiences in countries where perhaps English is not the main language. At the moment we will only be publishing articles in English or with an English translation.

We are also looking for humorous articles on any subject for a new section to be included in the time out section.

We also accept poetry submissions for our anthology. Shorter poems (20 lines) are best as they can be seen on screen without scrolling, but longer poems are quite acceptable. The standard 40 or 50 lines is probably quite long enough to read on-line, unless you have something special which is longer, which we will consider. The best way of ascertaining what we like is to read the anthology. We won't exclude rhyming poems, but there is a limit to how many iambic pentameter verses we are prepared to publish unless they show something 'ear-catching' in content or approach. Again we publish principally in English, although we may be interested in foreign language poems with translations.

Don't forget that we also need recipes (please be sure you have tested them - Patchword staff won't have time to try them all out, and we don't want any complaints of food poisoning!) Don't forget to include a list of ingredients and number of people the recipe serves as well as the method.

We also want book recommendations to include in our time out section. These can be about any book, whether currently in print or not; we are interested in fiction and non-fiction - whatever has taken your fancy and you would recommend to others. Please include as much information about author, publisher etc. as possible.

The editor's decision about what to include is final. We will respond as quickly as possible to submissions, if only to acknowledge that they are being held for further consideration, but if we reject something we will not enter into discussions. Nor do we correct style, spelling etc. of submissions, so do make sure that you have proof-read your manuscript. (For proof-reading & correction of style, see our services page.)

The best way of finding out what sort of thing we like is to read what we have already published.

One last thing - please be certain that you own the rights to any work that you send us!

We ask for electronic rights for the work we use, but the writers keep the copyright to their work. If you want us to withdraw an article from Patchword at a later date we will do so.

> Editorial
A word from your editor
> Time out
When you need a break: games, quizzes, book recommendations and more...
> Diary dates
Make a note of upcoming competitions, festivals and other important dates for writers.