So You Want to Submit to The Isis…
As the UK’s longest independent student magazine, we’re always eager to receive new work. We commission and edit new work through the pitching process, which opens in the weeks preceding Oxford term-term and closes shortly after term-time starts. The links to pitch can be found in our Instagram bio, as well as on our social media more generally. Anyone is welcome to submit — however, only students and faculty at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University are eligible to go through the editing process for inclusion in the physical magazine.
What we’re looking for:
Send us stuff we’ll love. We want smart work which is prescient and aware of the world around it. We want writing and art that engages with the world, both in Oxford and beyond. We want work that makes us feel something. We love championing new writers, and have been the literary jumping-off point for many of the UK’s most famous media figures through the past two centuries. Length limits for inclusion in the magazine are as below:
Fiction and poetry: 1500 words
Non-fiction and features: 1000-1300 words
Submission and editorial processes:
You can send us work via our pitching process, as outlined above. If accepted, our team of editors will be in touch to start the editing process, which generally takes around 4-5 weeks. This is not a guarantee of publication; publication rests on you being engaged and willing to work with our team to edit and create art for your piece in the weeks after acceptance. As a student magazine, supporting our editors and artists through giving them meaningful editorial and design experience is just as important as championing our writers.
After the editorial process, our team will be in touch to finalise the details of the publication process, primarily whether it will be hosted online (on our website) or in the physical magazine.
We welcome simultaneous submissions — however, we’d appreciate a note if your piece is accepted elsewhere. We don’t take work that has been previously published in a commercial setting, though social media is fine.
We look forward to reading your work!
Best,
Sharon Xuanling Zhang and Josephine Stern
Co-Editor-In-Chiefs of The Isis, Michaelmas Term 2026
