Authors’ Guidelines – Italian Americana

Authors’ Guidelines – Italian Americana

NOTA BENE:  All creative writers submitting to Italian Americana must be of Italian heritage on one or both sides of their family.  Please mention the connection in your cover letter or bio.

All submissions should be forwarded to us via email at italianamericana@luc.edu in a Word file attachment following the specific guidelines for each submission category, as indicated below.

Poetry Submissions (We nominate for the Pushcart Prize)

  • Please send up to five unpublished poems in a single Word file, Times New Roman 11 point font.
  • Your name, address, email address and phone number should appear on every page of the file.
  • Begin the document with a short cover letter, including a bio of no more than 65 words for inclusion in our “Notes on Contributors” section. Remember to include, either in your bio or your cover letter, an explanation of your Italian heritage. Please note that we may edit the bio according to space concerns.
  • We welcome poems on any subject and have no special preference for Italian or Italian American themes.
  • Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
  • Please email the Word doc to Italian Americana at italianamericana@luc.edu.  “Poetry/Your Last Name” should appear in the subject line.
  • If your poetry is published in Italian Americana, please wait for an additional issue to publish before sending new work to be considered.

Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Submissions:
Italian Americana accepts previously unpublished submissions in the following categories:

  • short story (fiction)
  • creative nonfiction
  • memoir
  • personal essay

(For differences between memoir and essay, please consult the Purdue Online Writing Lab.)

  • Please read our current and past issues to familiarize yourself with our publication and the choices our editors have made.  We prefer works that deal with Italian heritage and/or make explicit reference to elements of italianità, but we also welcome submissions on other topics.  Fine quality writing is our ultimate selection criterion.
  • Submissions should be no more than 4,000 words
  • Please email your Word doc to Italian Americana at italianamericana@luc.edu. The body of your email should include a brief biography about yourself (maximum of 65 words) for inclusion in our “Notes on Contributors” section with your name in bold font, upper and lower case. Please note that we may edit the bio according to space concerns.
  • We accept simultaneous submissions, and writers are required to extend the courtesy of letting us know that you are simultaneously submitting and immediately contact us if another magazine accepts your publication.
  • Remember to include, either in your bio or your cover letter, an explanation of your Italian heritage.

Article Submissions

  • Submissions must follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition. Italian Americana uses the author-date system for citations with authors’ full names in the Works Cited list. Notes may be used for supplemental information.

Examples:   

(Simonini 2015, 142)

Simonini, Carla Anne. 2015. “Constructing America by Writing about Italy: How Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing Informed Ethnic identity Construction in Italian-American Literature.” Italian Americana 33(2): 136-156.

  • Copy should be single-spaced in Times New Roman, 11 point font and with no line spaces between paragraphs and justified.
  • Paragraphs should be denoted by using the Tab—not by inserting line spaces between paragraphs.
  • Numbers from one to ten should be spelled out.
  • We follow American, not English style for quotes so that punctuation should be within the quote marks, except for semi-colons, where the semi-colon should be placed outside the quote marks.
  • No apostrophes in dates, unless it is a possessive: 1940s
  • Please email the Word doc to Italian Americana at italianamericana@luc.edu.  The body of your email should include a brief biography about yourself (maximum of 65 words) for inclusion in our “Notes on Contributors” section with your name in bold font, upper and lower case. Please note that we may edit the bio according to space concerns.