We welcome submissions whether or not they have already been published elsewhere. Why nICHt? publishes poetry, short prose and (occasionally) drama, but we also welcome any submission that plays with form, language, the page, images, and the form of a book.

As a multilingual magazine, we accept submissions in any European language, and your submission will be translated into English. While prose is published in translation only, we keep poetry in the original, alongside its translation. Each issue is thematic, with the theme announced in advance. Please submit work appropriate to the theme, and feel free to interpret the theme in unique and unconventional ways.

We aim for quality and originality; creative experiments are appreciated and encouraged.

The name you want to be published under can be your legal or a pen name.

Contributions are to be submitted via this form. Simply attach your text in .docx, .doc, .txt, .ods, or .ots format and submit by clicking “Submit”. We cannot accept handwritten or scanned submissions. All manuscripts should be in 12-point type, with at least 2,5 cm margins, and sequentially numbered pages. Short prose should be double-spaced. Poetry should be single-spaced. Please make sure your name appears on all of the pages of your manuscript. Contributors are asked to include a brief biographical note with their submission. Due to our editing process, we cannot and will not accept any submissions that are sent to us in a .pdf format.

Our response time varies from four to twelve weeks, depending on the number of submissions we receive and how close we are to this edition’s deadline. But if you have any questions in the meantime, do not hesitate to contact us. Multiple submissions will be returned unread. We ask you to wait until you hear back from us before submitting new work for consideration.

The length of a submission can be negotiated between the editors and the contributor, but our general guidelines are: Poetry submissions may contain up to five poems, no more than two A4 pages in length per piece. We accept submissions of all poetic forms and genres.

Short stories can be up to five A4 pages in length, and no more than 2000 words.

We assume that any submissions to Why nICHt? are solely owned by the contributor. If you submit work that has been published elsewhere, you must either own the copyright for that piece or get the permission of the publisher to reproduce copyrighted material.