Scrolls & Trolls

The Submission Desk

Submit

We want pieces where an ancient text explains a modern catastrophe. The desk is genuinely open, and the rules below are written plainly because the form is funny enough on its own.

Guidelines for Submissions

Read these. They are short. So should your piece be.

Pair one ancient text with one modern thing. The whole form is a hinge: a Homeric hymn and a Spotify Wrapped, the Stoics and a wellness app, Ovid and a dating profile. If your piece does not have an ancient text doing real work underneath it, it is a different magazine's piece.
Get the Classics right. Quote accurately. If you use Latin or Greek, include a translation, because a reader with no Latin should still get the joke and a reader with Latin should find nothing to correct. The accuracy is the engine. We check.
Keep it short. Under 1,200 words, and honestly under 900 is better. The shortest funny version of your idea is the one we want. Essays, dialogues, fake interviews, advice columns from dead philosophers, listings, parody documents, playful rants: all welcome.
Do not over-format. Plain text. No special fonts, no colors, no instructions about how it should be laid out. If the joke depends on formatting we cannot reproduce, it is not a joke we can run.
Original and unpublished. Send us work that has not run elsewhere, including on your own blog. We will say the same back to you if you want to send a piece on to a bigger venue afterward; most of them, McSweeney's included, will not take previously-posted work.
No AI-generated submissions. This is not a formality. A machine-written satirical voice is flat in a way that gives it away immediately, and it is against the rules at every venue we admire. Send us your own jokes. Pen names and full anonymity are available on request; a fake byline is fine, a fake author is not.

Include a name (real or otherwise) and the section you are writing for. We read everything and reply when we can. We cannot pay yet; we can edit you seriously, which at this stage is worth more.

Aiming Higher

Where We Send Our Own

Real desks, real rules

Part of running a column is sending the best pieces out past it. These are the real outlets Scrolls & Trolls writes toward, with their actual desks. The guidelines are theirs, web-verified, not ours; if you are a contributor with a piece too good for us, aim it here yourself.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency

Web pieces and lists

Under 1,200 words, shorter preferred. Plain formatting. Original, unpublished work only. No degree or track record needed. They reply when they can.

Antigone Journal

Classics for curious readers, 15-30

1,000 to 2,000 words, short paragraphs, English translations of any Greek or Latin, roughly six topic keywords. Pitch the idea first.

Ephebeia (Paideia Institute)

Youth Classics journal, grades 9-12

Up to 3,000 words, MLA citations, one submission per issue, original scholarship or creative work on antiquity and its reception. Mature, lucid style.

The Paideia Institute, In Medias Res

Essays on Classics in the wider world

Short essays connecting the ancient world to the modern one. The author's own teaching and reading pieces aim here.

The exact email desks, word counts, and deadlines for each venue are in the venue-submission kit that ships beside this site. The honest part: most asks miss, and the plan is built to survive that.