We publish literary work on mothers, mothering, and motherhood, in all its forms. You need not be a mother to submit, as long as your piece is focused on motherhood. 

MER 24 will be a themed issue. The theme is

MER 24: Mother & Family

Often, as mothers, we are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around us. Family of heritage, family of birth, family of choice, our greater human family: our families can be sources of support, of exhaustion, of love, of pain.  Our families can pass down to us lore or trauma. For MER 24, we are exploring poems that address our role as mother in these unwieldy units, how we embroider with and untangle these familial threads that can heal or hinder. Send us your poems, your family recipes, your generational myths, your memories that you’ve borne, your visions for the future.

Please read our print journal and online quarterly: http://merliterary.com

We publish poetry (up to 3 poems, no more than 5 pages), and fiction, creative prose/nonfiction, and hybrid works (up to 1000 words) on mothering or motherhood. You need not be a mother to submit. Our calendar conforms to Eastern Time.

Submit work that has not been previously published online or in print. Simultaneous submissions are okay, but please let us know promptly if your submission is accepted elsewhere, by using your Submittable.com account to add a note to your submission telling us which titles are no longer available for consideration.

Submissions will be considered for the print issue and for MER Online on our website unless you specify that you are only submitting for one or the other. If you have previously submitted to MER online or print, we request that you submit work other than that previously submitted.

PLEASE NOTE: If your work was included in the Mom Egg Review Vol. 23, please wait until next year to submit in the same genre to our print issue. You may submit in a different genre. If you submit work in the genre previously published, it will be considered for online publication only.

How to submit

We use Submittable for online submissions, and do not accept paper or email submissions.

Cover letter: Please include the title(s) of each individual work in the submission and a brief (50-75 word) third person bio.

Submit your work in one document named “Last name, First name, Genre.”  We strongly prefer .doc, docx, .txt, or .rtf. If your work requires a pdf, please email us at mersubmissions@gmail.com and attach the pdf.

Poetry: Please submit up to 3 poems in a single word or text document of no more than 6 pages with the file name Last name, First name, Poetry. Please number your pages and start each poem on a separate page. Important: Please left justify your poem without indenting and single space your poem unless indenting or extra spacing is an integral part of the poem.

Creative Prose, Fiction, Cross-genre: Please submit one piece up to 1000 words, or several short-short pieces that total fewer than 1000 words in all, in a single word or text document with the file name Last name, First name, Genre. Please double space, number your pages, and put title of the submission (but not your name) on top of each page.

Contact: MERsubmissions@gmail.com (Please be sure to add this address to your email program so that you can receive correspondence from us). We will add all submitters to our mailing list (we send a bimonthly newsletter) but you may unsubscribe if you wish.

Terms of publication

You represent that you created the piece, you own the rights to the piece, and allow us to publish it. If you collaborated with anyone or thing (eg. AI) in creating the piece, you must note that on the page. MER acquires first-time publication rights to the piece. We also reserve the right to republish it in a future electronic and/or print collections. Back issues are archived indefinitely. Rights return to the authors after publication; after the contributions have appeared in MER, the authors may republish their pieces in any manner they wish but it is requested they acknowledge prior publication in MER.

We are a volunteer organization, and are unable to pay for pieces at this time. A complimentary PDF contributor copy of the complete issue will be emailed to contributors prior to the launch date. You will also have the opportunity to purchase hard copies at reduced contributor rates if you wish.

We will respond by November 2025. The issue will be published in April 2026.

Thanks for submitting to MER. We look forward to reading your work.