Better Than Starbucks
Poetry & Fiction Journal
Published quarterly:
Spring (Mar); Summer (Jun); Autumn ( Sep); Winter (Dec)
November 2022
Vol VII No IV
Current Issue (latest)
. . . if you love diversity and creative writing in any and every form, then you’re in the right place
New Issue Coming Soon
Autumn 2026 | Vol 8 No 1
Better Than Starbucks Journal Submission Guidelines
We are currently accepting submissions for the Sep 2026 Autumn Issue.
After our 47th issue, published November 2022, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal (BTS Journal) went on hiatus while Better Than Starbucks (BTS) Publications continued to operate.
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PLEASE NOTE that all submissions for the BTS Journal made from November 2022 through February 2026 were not accepted due to the journal being on hiatus.
If you submitted your work to us during the pause in publication and did not receive a reply, please resubmit it for consideration for our Sep 2026 Autumn Issue.
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We are excited that you are here and hope that you want to be part of the BTS Journal revival.
Thank you to all of you who have contributed to the journal in the past, you are the creative force behind BTS.
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— DE Navarro, Publisher
How to Submit
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All submissions are to be made via email to
betterthanstarbucks2@gmail.com.
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Copy your submissions into the body of your email.
We do not open attachments.
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Send up to four poems or one piece of fiction or creative nonfiction or a book review or a literary crit essay, or a short academic paper on poetry and/or writing.
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If you are sending short forms (six lines or less) such as haiku, limericks, micro-poetry, you may send up to six.
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Prose Limits:
(Be sure to indicate word count in submission email.)
Short stories or creative nonfiction up to 5000 words.
Academic articles/papers up to 5000 words (body).
Literary Crit Essay up to 3000 words.
Book Review up to 2000 words.
Flash Fiction up to 1000 words.
Prose poetry up to 500 words.
Micro-fiction up to 100 words.
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Art submitted to be considered for a print cover should be a high resolution image (min 300 dpi, 20 MP or higher).
You may submit work to four different categories per issue (in separate emails). After that, do not submit more work until the next issue's call for submissions is made.
We accept previously published work.
We accept simultaneous submissions.
Include a short third person POV bio with your submission.
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Please read the "Important Details" below.
The Submission Email
Use the email’s subject line to direct your work to the appropriate category (genre). This is necessary to ensure that your submission gets forwarded to the right editor.
We consider any topic and have no preferences for or against any topic but reserve the right to curate the content we feel is best for each issue. See the "What to Submit" section below.
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Choose from the following categories (genres):
Free Verse
Haiku*
Formal, Traditional, and Rhyming Poetry
Poetry Translations**
Poetry for Children
Prose Poetry
Fiction
Flash Fiction
Micro-Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Critical Literary Essay
Analytical Essay
Book Review
Academic Paper
Short Form (brevity, minimalist, imagist, micro-poetry)
Street View (slam, rap, performance, spoken word as written)
Avant Garde (new, experimental, found, erasure, shape, anything
different)***
Eastern Forms (haiga, haibun, tanka, Chinese 4-line, chain haiku,
renga)
International Poetry (African, Asian, European, Indian, Indigenous,
and more, see explanation below)****
Image/Art (art submitted to be considered for our print cover
should be high resolution image (min 300 dpi, 20 MP or higher)
Not Sure*****
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The editors of BTS reserve the right to determine which category your submissions fit into. We will communicate this with you.
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* Please do not send haiku with titles, titles will not be published with the haiku. We accept traditional haiku (5-7-5), modern haiku (9-17 syllables over 3 lines), two line and one line haiku, hybrid haiku (try us out), senryu haiku, and other variations. The haiku editor reserves the right to determine if your work is haiku or if it is just a nice three line imagistic poem lacking the real attributes of haiku.
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** Please include the original language poem along with the translation. Please include a literal word for word translation copy as well if you have it. And, of course, include the final translation to be published.
*** Please send all shape poetry or other wildly formatted poetry as a high resolution image (min 300 dpi, 16 MP or higher) attached to the email. We still need the text pasted into the body of the email, but we need the image to preserve your shape.
**** International poetry is poetry that is written by natives and natural citizens of nations with non-English cultures (not the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand) who usually do not speak English as a cradle or native language.
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*****If you are not sure what category your submission fits into, or it doesn't seem to fit into any of our categories, just choose "Not Sure" as your email Subject line and send.
Payment and Fees:
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We do not charge any reading or submission fees and never will.
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We are all volunteers without pay. BTS runs as a nonprofit with most funding being provided by the generous donations of our readers and supporters and some from sales revenue.
We are not able to pay for most poetry or fiction. Our staff donate their time, and when funding permits, featured contributors are paid first.
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Contributors receive their choice of a free PDF or eBook version of our print issue.
Up to twelve poets/authors are designated as "Features" (which may be picked from any category) and each receives an honorarium of $20.
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(Payment via Paypal only, so you need a Paypal account to receive it.)
Copyright:
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You retain all copyrights and other rights to your work submitted and/or published in BTS Journal. By submitting work, you grant BTS Journal one-time publication rights to present your work in the chosen issue across all our media (online, digital, print) globally. You also grant us the right to use the work in promotions and in potential future anthologies based on all prior published work in the BTS Journal. The exception to this is work authored by the editors, including Interviews, while working in a BTS specified role.
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If you submit work which has been previously published, make sure you have the rights to it and let us know where it was first published so we can properly credit the work.
Most publications do not keep the rights to your work, but just make sure.
If you self-published it or posted it to an open group, we do not consider that published, so no mention need be made.
Important Details (don't miss these):
We accept simultaneous submissions, however, by submitting your work to us you are granting us the right to select it for publication. You may withdraw your submission anytime before we select it. Once we select it for publication it cannot be withdrawn.
Since we do accept previously published work, if your work gets accepted elsewhere just notify us and we will give credit to where it is published first. If we publish it first, you need to notify the other publisher that it was selected and published by us.
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Along with your work please send your full name and return address, as well as the pen name you would like the work published under, if different than your legal name.
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We do not accept submissions from anyone other than the original author. By submitting to us you are declaring work submitted is original work by you and that you have all rights to it. You are granting us publishing rights as specified in the Copyright section above.
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Please include a short third person POV bio with your submission, ideally 30 words or less, but up to 40 words max is acceptable. If you do not include a bio and we publish some of your work, we will make one up based on what we know about you or just use your name and general location. If you fail to provide a name and location with your submission you may not receive a response from us.
We (the editors of BTS) reserve the right to edit your bio as we see fit, including bios that exceed the 40 word count. Once work is selected for publication, bios cannot be changed as they become part of the layout and design of the print editions and are unable to be altered.
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When you submit, you will receive an acknowledgement of receipt. If you do not receive the acknowledgement, then we did not receive your submission. Please check the email address and try again.
We will notify you if your submission is either accepted or declined. Response time is currently up to 90 days. If you have not heard back after 90 days, it is likely that your work has been long listed and held over for another round of reading. Please feel free to query after 90 days. When we publish, we send a notification of publication to each contributor.
Please do NOT send/submit work for different categories (genres) in the same email. Use a different email to submit to each category.
For instance, if you are submitting some free verse and some formal and/or rhyming poetry, you need to send two separate email submissions. One with the subject line: Free Verse Submission; and one with the subject line: Formal, Traditional, & Rhyming Submission.
These are added to different queues and will be read by different editors and responded to at different times. The same applies to any other category or genre.
What to Submit?
The best advice is to read issues of our journal. There are 47 issues available online. The range of what we publish is broad.
We prefer shorter poems, of up to 50 lines, although we do publish longer poems occasionally.
We do not publish political poems; no partisan rhetoric of any sort. We generally do not like poems which preach or pontificate.
We like poems which illustrate some aspect of the human condition and which elicit a personal response or connection from the reader.
If your poem or story employs irony or humor, please send it.
In both the poetry and fiction, we aren’t prudes, but we aren’t looking for gratuitous sex, violence or crude language. We will accept any of these things if we feel they are important to the story.
We will not publish anything that we think can be construed as hateful.
Finally, in Free Verse and Fiction especially, we receive hundreds of submissions, and quite a number in Formal poetry as well. We regretfully decline poems and stories we might have chosen at another time. Read a few more issues and try again. We do not generally give feedback on your work unless specifically requested.
Everything which appears online is in our print issues as well.
Please an Editor
Consider putting your submission into the formats we use as per our style practices. For example, if your title is all in caps, it will have to be retyped and then bolded. If your story paragraphs are indented, the indents will be removed. You might consider reviewing a few issues to become familiar with our practices.
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Prose authors please include the word count of your work with your submission.
In Summary
It is always free to submit.
We do not charge fees for contest submissions.
Featured writers are paid upon publication.
Previously published work is welcome.
Send us your best writing.
We are all unpaid volunteer workers who do it because we love poetry and the writing arts.
BTS runs on donations and print book sales.
Order your copy of one or more issues today.
Consider donating.
Thank you, we love you.
47 issues are available to read for free online. Visit the Archives page and browse past issues in your genre to get an idea of what we publish.
To our contributors: You are our treasure, the reason Better Than Starbucks exists and is able to offer so much great poetry and fiction. Occasionally emails go astray, and we encourage anyone who has not received a response from us to email again and inquire. We will do our best to respond to every email personally. Thank you again for trusting us with your work, and we hope you continue enabling us to make this journal an ever better showcase for your writing. — Vera Ignatowitsch, Editor-in-Chief