Blood and Thunder accepts works of prose, poetry, and visual arts. 

Submissions for 2022 have closed. Thank you for your interest!

Please click here to join our mailing list for notification of future publication releases and submission opportunities.

If you need to withdraw your submission for any reason, please email us at BloodandThunder@ouhsc.edu. You will receive a reply to confirm withdrawal. Thank you!

Submission window ended May 27th, 2022.

Thank you for your interest in submitting to Blood & Thunder! We are always looking for creative and capable writers to share their work with our readers. While we do have a dedicated volunteer staff of copy editors, we ask that you utilize a few basic editing principles and glance through our rules for submission before submitting your work.

 I. Blood & Thunder Rules

 Please read the below rules before proceeding to the submission process.

   1. Prose and poetry submissions must not exceed 3,500 words.

● Submissions exceeding this word count may be rejected without review.

 2. Submission documents should NOT contain any personal identifiers. If your submission concerns a specific patient, provider or any other person, please use pseudonyms in lieu of actual names and non-specific or fictional names for places of work or residence.

● Violations of this rule could result in immediate rejection without review.

 3. Please create one Microsoft Word document for each submission.

● (3 POEMS = 3 WORD DOCs)

 4. For prose and poetry, Blood & Thunder follows Associated Press (AP) Guidelines.

● See “Format Guidelines” section for more details.

 5. All work submitted must be related to health or health care.

● The decision on a work's relation to health or health care will rest with the Blood & Thunder editorial staff.

 6. One author or artist can submit up to 5 works total.

● This rule applies to any combination of prose, poetry, and visual art submissions.

7. Blood & Thunder cannot accept works previously published or due to be published by any other publication.

● This includes paper publications, internet publications and prior publication in Blood & Thunder.

8. Blood & Thunder acquires first publication rights.

● After publication, author can reprint work(s) as long as appropriate acknowledgment to Blood & Thunder is made.

9. The only direct compensation to the author or artist is in the form of one free copy of the edition of the journal in which their work appeared.

● Monetary compensation is not possible.

 10. We require a signed “Letter of Agreement” prior to publication of any work.

● The author or artist will receive the document as an attachment with their email notification of acceptance into the forthcoming journal.

Additional Visual Art Submission Requirements:

 1. Visual art submissions can include paintings, drawings and photography.

 2. Photography of three-dimensional artwork, such as sculptures, for which the submitting artist is credited must be the creator of the artwork and the photographer.

 3. Any identifiable photograph of an individual must be accompanied by a release showing consent to be photographed and published.

● Any photographs in health care facilities that violate federal and/or state policies such as HIPAA will not be accepted.

 4. All works should be sent in a (.JPG) or (.JPEG) format, scanned at a resolution 300 dpi or greater and have a file size no greater than 30 MB.

● If an artist wishes to submit a higher-resolution depiction of their work, he or she may submit one after notification of acceptance.

II. Format Guidelines

 Every submission should be in a Microsoft Word document that is spell-checked prior to submitting. While we do understand that some medical terminology may appear misspelled, any gross misspellings or repeated errors in the composition of written works may result in lower scores used to rank submissions, which could decrease the chances of acceptance. It is therefore the responsibility of the author to proofread their submission prior to submission.

 To ensure clarity and consistency in our publication, we use AP style. We understand that many artistic mechanics (e.g., poetic contraction) explicitly break AP style. Those intentional breaks of AP style by the author are accepted with editorial discretion, and the author should note it when submitting. If using AP style will not compromise the artistry of the work, we prefer that the author submit the work under AP style.

 A brief list of AP guidelines is provided below, but a further in-depth summary of AP style with examples can be found here.

1. Use numerals for addresses, dates, years and ages.

2. Do not begin a sentence with a numeral. Spell out the number, except if it is a date.

3. Spell out numbers less than 10 and use numerals for numbers greater than or equal to 1o.

4. Use quotation marks around titles of books (except reference books), songs, poems, etc.

5. Do not use quotation marks for titles of magazines, newspapers or catalogues.

6. Do not use the Oxford comma.

7. Place a space on both sides of an em dash (--) and of ellipses (...).

8. Do not indent paragraphs.

9. Spell out abbreviations when they are first used followed by its acronym in parentheses.

10. States should be spelled out when written alone and abbreviated when they appear with the name of a city.

11. When writing a time, do not use :00, instead use p.m. or a.m. (i.e. 1 p.m., not 1:00).

12. Capitalize formal titles (i.e. Dr., Sen., Gov., etc.).

13. Do not capitalize common nouns just because they sound important (e.g. emergency department).

14. Do not use contractions.

Ready to submit? Submit your work HERE.