The 2026 general article submission window will be open until the beginning of June 2026. Book review queries and submissions remain open throughout the year. If you passed your accessibility screening and are already in process of working with us for a creative think piece or essay, please remain in touch with the editor with whom you have been working.If you are submitting to JFA Presents: The Ruthven Literary Bulletin, follow issue-specific guidelines here or at the bottom of this page. Submissions for the focused issue will be open until June 2026 and acceptances will go out by September 2026. The issue will be published in early 2027. For submission information for the Bulletin, click here.

Please make sure that essays and book reviews adhere to the JFA Submission, Accessibility and Sensitivity Review Handbook and JFA In-House Style Guide before submission to journal@fantastic-arts.org.  All submissions must be completely anonymous and submitted in .doc or .docx following MLA guidelines as adapted by our In-House Style Guide. Do not submit without making sure your work is in line with the guidelines articulated in the Submission, Accessibility and Sensitivity Handbook. Please wait until submission windows have closed before querying about review status.

JFAs-Submission-Accessibility-and-Sensitivity-Handbook

Subject Matter

Like the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts from which it was generated, JFA welcomes papers on all aspects of the fantastic in world literatures and media, as well as interdisciplinary approaches including African/Diaspora Studies, anthropology, area studies, critical game studies, disability studies, future studies, gender studies, history, Indigenous studies, music, philosophy, political science, postcolonial studies, psychology, queer studies, religious studies, science and technology studies, and sociology. All papers are made available in English.  Those interested in publishing in other languages in addition to English are asked to inquire with our Acquisitions Editor at jfa.editor@fantastic-arts.org with the subject line “Languages.”

Submissions should contain a more in-depth discussion than a conference-length paper and demonstrate a grasp of current scholarship on the subject. The length of articles generally varies from 3,500-9,000 words and ranges from 15-35 pages.

Submissions are peer-reviewed in accordance with our peer review statement and the BIPOC Anti-Racist Statement on Scholarly Reviewing Practices.  If submissions are flagged at any point of the review process for the risk of promulgating potentially misrepresentative, stereotypical, ableist, or racist views, contributors will be asked to address these problems before the review process can continue. 

An accessibility or subject reviewer can recommend a final rejection, which will be upheld by the Journal.  Please be aware that there is an upper limit of three review rejections of an essay, even without a reviewer’s request for a final rejection, that will nevertheless result in a final rejection.  This means that if an essay does not pass an accessibility and sensitivity or subject review, the submission may only be revised and submitted twice more before the Journal‘s final rejection.  Please pay careful attention to feedback from any and all anonymized reviews.  Be aware that requests for revision are alternatives to final rejection.  Please respect and leave in place editorial revisions reviewers may have made for you.  Should you wish to discuss revisions, immediately contact the Acquisitions and Reviews Editor-in-Chief at jfa.acquisitions@fantastic-arts.org.  Please also be aware that compromising your or a reviewer’s anonymity will also result in an immediate final rejection of the essay.

JFA also publishes reviews of scholarly works addressing the fantastic, broadly construed. Reviews of fiction are limited to reissues of speculative works with new introductions and scholarly apparatuses, and speculative works with the potential to impact scholarship in the genre. Books and other media received are advertised on the IAFA discussion list (which can be subscribed to through the IAFA homepage at www.iafa.org), and IAFA members are encouraged to suggest titles for review. Questions and suggestions may be addressed to the Acquisitions Department through Submissions Editor-in-Chief Tedd Hawks at journal@fantastic-arts.org with the subject line including the phrase “Book Review.”

For specific formatting guidelines and links to the Accessibility and Sensitivity Handbook, please visit https://www.fantastic-arts.org/jfa/submissions/.