r.kv.r.y. (rĭ-kŭv’ə-rē)

1. an act, process, or instance of recovering,

2. a return to normal conditions,

3. something gained or restored in recovering,

4. obtaining usable substances from unusable sources.

Photograph by Jenn Rhubright

Submit all work through our submission manager here.

We publish in January, April, July, and October. We are closed to submissions during the summer months, but we are now a paying market. Contributors will receive $10 on publication.

We prefer fewer than 3,000 words for prose, under 1,000 for flash, and no more than three poems per submission. **Please submit all poems in one document.**

We interpret recovery broadly: grief, war, exile, divorce, abuse, bigotry, illness, injury, addiction, loss of innocence, and any other topic where recovery presents itself. Recovery may be early stage, middle stage, late stage, or no stage. Failure and doubt are also part of recovery. We will not define recovery as necessarily requiring success.

POETRY
r.kv.r.y. is interested in good poetry with recovery themes. Poems need not be in first-person. They need not be written by those actually recovering. At the end of the day, the editors of r.kv.r.y. would give you this advice: if you have a good poem, submit it. The worst we can do is say no. (Maximum of 3 poems per submission)

SHORT STORIES
We look to publish fiction that varies widely in style and prefer stories exhibiting character development, psychological penetration, and lyricism, without sentimentality or purple prose. We ask that all submissions address issues related to recovery as defined above. (3,000 words or less)

ESSAYS
Essays published by r.kv.r.y. embrace every area of adult interest related to recovery. Material should be suited to a quarterly that is neither journalistic nor academic but that seeks to explore and understand our human failings. (3,000 words or less)

SHORTS ON SURVIVAL (S.O.S.)
Each issue of r.kv.r.y. will include a number of short-shorts (fiction or non-fiction, under 1,000 words) on the theme of survival–the ultimate result and underlying purpose of recovery.