(*Artist credit: Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash)

Our next open call for submissions for our spring 2024 issue of Blue Heron Review (BHR #18) will be January 15th–30th, 2024.

THEME: THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATION & CHANGE

Feel free to interpret this theme in any way that speaks to you. This could be about personal transformation and inner change, transforming your local community, transforming your relationships with loved ones, or making a positive change in our world today. See where this theme takes you, and then send us your best poems.

*NOTE: Please see our updated guidelines page. There have been some changes. Please do not send submissions before January 15th, 2024. A recent change in the work flow of BHR will be that only 20-25 poems will be selected for each issue. We have grown tremendously over the past 10 years, and our issues have become too large to curate and edit. This change will enable Blue Heron to continue to exist without exhausting our inner resources. This means that the selection process will become more challenging, and we won’t be able to accept as many poems as we would like. Please keep this in mind when submitting. Managing a literary journal is a huge undertaking. It is a labor of love that does not come with a salary. Editors are writers, too, who have careers and families.

I truly look forward to reading your poems in January! Sharpen your pencils and limber up. It’s time to transform our lives through the written word.

All kind thoughts,
Cristina M. R. Norcross, Founding Editor
Blue Heron Review