Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word or another RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic guide notes in the Author Guidelines, found in About the Journal, and I understand that the text may be rejected at the editor's discretion if style and format are not sufficiently followed.

Author Guidelines

Plath Profiles is an interdisciplinary journal that welcomes the submission of scholarly articles, visual poetry, creative writing, art, book reviews, memoir, pedagogy, student research, and other works on Sylvia Plath, including on the subject of Plath’s writings and relating to Plath’s work and life.

Plath Profiles continues to be open to all writers and to a diverse array of takes on Sylvia Plath scholarship and creative interpretation. As part of our ongoing commitment to publishing and sharing diverse and varied work from many perspectives, the editors encourage submissions from BIPOC, disabled, queer, migrant or immigrant, neurodivergent, and other writers of historically under-resourced or marginalized identities to submit their work. We would also like to encourage writing on and about these topics and fields of inquiry in relation to Plath’s work and influence, from theoretical interpretations to creative explorations. Please pitch the editors if you are interested in submitting work and would like more guidance on how to engage with these ideas; we would love to hear from you!

Submissions may directly engage with Plath as a historical subject, literary giant, and contested site; may imitate Plath’s style and sensibilities to generate new writing and other creative work; may utilize feminist, post-colonial, post-structural, queer, mulitlingual, and other strategies to analyze Plath’s work; or may propose a new path for Plath studies. Plath Profiles reviews timely unsolicited book reviews and is interested in covering as many Plath-related publications as possible. We also accept news from the field of Plath studies.

Submissions are double peer-reviewed and subject to editing in collaboration with the author(s).

Our response time is between 3-6 months. We release a new issue of Plath Profiles approximately once annually.

For all submissions, the editors request the following:

  • Length
    • Articles should have a maximum of 7000 words.
    • Creative work has a maximum of 5 pages for prose and 7 pages for poetry. No exceptions.
  • Formatting
    • All articles must be submitted electronically via the Scholarworks/OJS website. No submissions via email will be reviewed. Please save in Microsoft Word, single-spaced 12 point type, .25 indents, no tabs, no unnecessary hard returns, name and title on every page.
    • Please, when possible, do not submit your work to other journals while it is under review with Plath Profiles. We are a small staff with a resulting long turnaround time for decisions.
    • Include a short author biography of no more than 50 words in the body of the file after the works cited list.
    • Articles must include an abstract as part of the submission. For creative submissions, please provide a brief description of the engagement with Plath’s oeuvre.
  • Citations
    • Images and diagrams must be submitted separately, be fully credited, and have rights obtained in advance by the author.
    • We are unable to acquire the rights to reprint Plath’s poems, photos, or other archival items for the author.
    • Quotations from Plath’s works must fall within the guidelines of ‘fair use’. For more information, please see http://www.copyright.gov/fl s/fl 102.html
    • Articles must be fully referenced using MLA or CMS and cited with full and accurate notes. References must be from verifiable academic sources.
    • Poor formatting, styling, or citation may result in the rejection of your submission.
  • Revisions
    • If an article is approved, it is the duty of the author to submit updates and revisions to their work by the agreed upon or stipulated deadline, which is final. Failure to do so will result in removal of the work from the slated volume.\
    • The Editor and the Editorial Board reserve the right to withdraw articles and their approval for articles at any time. Their decision is final.

If you are interested in becoming a reader for Plath Profiles, email us at PlathProfiles at Gmail dot com!