Brink is an independent nonprofit publisher of hybrid writing. Through our publications, Brink Literary Journal and Brink Books, we create space in the literary world for hybrid, cross-genre, and unclassified works by emerging and established writers and artists.
Hybrid writing often includes multiple mediums such as visual and written elements that together accomplish a result impossible to achieve alone. Text-based hybrid writing harnesses form and content in singular ways to create dynamic work primed to offer new perspectives, voices, and ideas that prioritize the combination of multiple literary and artistic elements to produce a readable, engaging piece of work.
We accept a variety of creative work from every genre and work that resists any genre. We are most interested in work that presses creative boundaries, uses more than one medium to tell a story, and both looks and feels different on the page. Additionally, we look for submissions that engage the theme of each issue alongside the idea of being on the brink.
Please familiarize yourself with Brink prior to submitting your work. Single issues and subscriptions can be purchased from our website. We read every submission and respectfully request you wait one full submission period to resubmit if your work has been declined.
Guidelines:
We’re looking for work that reignites our idea of what an essay can do or be. We’re particularly excited about flash essays, ekphrasis nonfiction, lists, diary entries, erasures, manifestos, intense lyricism, auto-theory, translations, and revelatory ruptures in form and syntax that breaks, and remakes, language anew.
Some of Josh’s favorite writers include Hanif Abdurraqib, Amina Cain, Tisa Byrant, Garth Greenwell, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Kate Zambreno, and Christina Sharpe. Some of our favorite nonfiction we’ve published in Brink includes work by Gyasi Hall, Julie Moon, and Sarah Minor. The best way to check out what work we’re drawn to is to read work published in Brink.
Please submit no more than one piece during each reading period that does not exceed 3,000 words.
The Brink Prize for Hybrid Fiction will be administered to the winner of a literary contest for one piece. The contest is judged annually by a different individual who is a noted professional in the literary field.
CONTEST RULES
- The contest is open to all writers and artists who identify their work as hybrid or cross-genre in nature
- Submit up to 15 pages of unpublished work
- One previously unpublished submission per entrant
- All entries will be read anonymously. Before you submit, please remove your name and any other identifying information from your submission
- Family, colleagues, intimate friends, current students of the judge, and contributors previously published in Brink Literary Journal are ineligible
CONTEST PRIZE
- $700
- Publication in the spring issue of Brink Literary Journal
- 4 copies of the journal issue in which the winning submission appears
APPLICATION DATES AND FEES
- Submissions open July 1 - 31
- $25 non-refundable entry fee
Guidelines:
We’re looking for poems made of surprising, evocative language—poems that create their own atmospheres, that display formal adventurousness, that emerge from an emotional core and enact the tensions of being human. We’re interested in lyricism, in lists, in constellated images, in broken forms, in old forms made new and strange, in mixtapes, in multiple registers, in documentary records, in rhythmic lineations and rests, in hybrid richness. Send us magnetic, compelling work that expands our understanding of what a poem can be.
Please send us 3-5 unpublished poems, totaling no more than 10 pages, in a single document.
We prefer doc or docx unless your piece requires PDF to maintain its shape.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed but please notify us through Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere. If you are a previous contributor, please wait two years before submitting again.
We look forward to reading your poems!
Guidelines:
In 2025, Brink launched a new Video Essay & Cinepoetry section along with a call for submissions that combine poetry and prose with moving images.
We are excited to feature video work that artfully combines written and visual media in ways that surprise us, inviting new resonances and pushing the boundaries of media and genre. We are most interested in short video works, but will consider longer projects of exceptional quality. You can view examples of the kind of work we're excited about in Issues 9-11.
We understand that this kind of work lives both ephemerally and in place-based publication formats. We invite submissions of short films and videos that have been live screened at festivals and performances, or have future screenings scheduled. At this time, we are not seeking video work that has been previously published online, or recordings/documentation of live readings or spoken word performances.
Please upload your video file, or simply include a link to Vimeo or YouTube in your cover letter. Please be sure to mention the password if your file requires it.
The Emerging Writer Fellowship in Hybrid Writing offers editorial support, guidance, and mentorship to previously unpublished writers who demonstrate exceptional promise in hybrid and cross-genre writing. The fellow will work alongside the Brink editorial team to prepare their piece for publication. The virtual fellowship takes place over a period of four months in the fall and provides the following:
- One-on-one developmental editing with an emphasis on developing the innovative hybrid aspects of the selected piece
- Advice and guidance on career development via the submission and publication process
- Publication in a print issue of Brink
- Four copies of the journal issue in which the winning submission appears
GUIDELINES
The fellowship is open to all writers and artists who identify their work as hybrid or cross-genre in nature or who are interested in the process of learning how to hybridize their work in a readable, creative manner.
- Emerging writers who have not yet published a book-length collection are eligible
- Writers with forthcoming books may enter if their first book is published after April 2026
- Writers who have edited and published an anthology or a collection of other writers' works remain eligible
- Submit up to 15 pages in one previously unpublished submission per entrant
- All entries will be read anonymously. Before you submit, please remove your name and any other identifying information from your submission
- Family, colleagues, intimate friends, and contributors previously published in Brink Literary Journal or Brink Books are ineligible