Flying into 2026
Upcoming Submission Periods & More
Happy New Years, everyone!
This is the week we’ll share our first ever selected flash story, and then every Thursday after that, we’ll publish a new piece of prose alongside an interview with the writer.
Reading Updates & Insights
We’re now halfway through reading and responding to the over 7000 submissions we received for our first reading period. I’m happy to share we’ve been able to stick to our response time frames for both fast and regular subs. So, because we closed for subs on Nov 30, I can confidently say we’ll have finished replying to everyone by the end of March, give or take a couple days.
I plan on making a more in-depth post after that sharing some cool data points and insights and a kind of overarching analysis of the state of submitting and writing short fiction and prose today as it connects to what we’ve learned from reading this first batch of subs for Strange Pilgrims. Just so I can feel the pulse for this:
Year-Round Free Subs
Submissions are ALWAYS open for paid subscribers via this link
The current password can be found here below the paywall:
2026 Submission Dates
On the topic of submissions, then, I also want to share what our next reading periods will be. We’ve been mulling this one over a bunch and here’s what we’ve come up with for 2026:
We’ll open next on March 6, 2026 for 24 hours only in honor of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s birthday.
Next, we’ll open for a longer period 2 weeks between July 1—July 15, 2026. And our last open regular reading period for 2026 will be on September 21st (in honor of Leonard Cohen), once again this one for 24 hours.
We have yet to decide whether we’ll keep submissions for Review & Critique open for longer chunks of time or not. I imagine we’ll have a better idea once we’ve finished reading through all the subs we’ve received in this category.
Submissions are and will remain free for all these reading periods here alongside additional options to support us via tip-jar and the fast-response options, or to purchase feedback for your submitted piece.
We’ve also not yet decided whether we’ll open for paid editorial feedback separately from these submission periods. We invest considerable time and effort into the feedbacks we give and have so far received wonderful responses. So, it really just is a matter of figuring out how much of our time we can make available alongside everything else. Again, we’ll update you soon as we’ve got this one figured out.
Some Post-Virality Thoughts
In our first email/post to all subscribers, after a few of our notes went viral here on Substack, we shared the following in an effort to maintain transparency while also keep sustainability in mind:
To run a magazine that doesn’t charge fees and pays writers, we rely on our readers. If you’d like to help sustain Strange Pilgrims, you can:
Become a paid subscriber
Leave a tip when submitting
Request paid editorial feedback (via the submission form)
To the 59 of you who’ve leapt into paid subscriptions — thank you so much! We don’t take that lightly. It means this strange little idea is already standing on its legs. Here are just some of the signposts we see ahead of us:
At 250 paid subscribers, we can cover operating costs — paying writers, commissioning art, design, and keeping the lights on (in our heads and on the site).
At 500, we can release beautiful quarterly digital issues.
At 1000, we can dream of going to print.
I’m happy to share that we are about to reach the first signpost! Your support means the world to us. Thank you very much for making Strange Pilgrims possible. We’re excited to serve you and bring you the best in creative writing today!
There are also so many cool things we want to attempt but I find I have to keep holding myself back, because, well, time and money money and time and on and on it goes. Still, immensely grateful to be where we are right now!
What to Expect
As I noted above, every Thursday you’ll receive a new piece of writing we’ve accepted from our submission pool. Every other week, on a day other than Thursday (probably Monday or Tuesday), we’ll also send out one additional awesome post.
For example, we very much intend to continue our Lit Theory 101 series:
And a follow-up to our most loved post yet:
As well as loads more cool things we’ve got planned.
Soon, I’ll make separate sections for everything (like, short stories, flash, editorials, etc) and you’ll be able to pick and choose (if you want to) which specific newsletters you want to receive.
Besides written posts, we’re also thinking of doing an AMA style Substack Live with Karan Kapoor and myself. If you have a question you’d like us to answer, please send it through here.
So so excited to see the first stories soon!!!
This is a great idea !