Current Contest

Break the Rules

Four Tulips wants you to break the rules. We’re looking for fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction about broken rules, but we’re also looking for work that breaks the “rules” or writing. What happens when a sonnet only has 13 lines? How does a story change when the tense shifts halfway through? We are very excited to see the work that can come out of breaking some rules.

The Break the Rules Contest is accepting submissions until June 30th.

The winner and finalists will be published in the online magazine and in a Four Tulips print anthology. Winners receive 5 free copies of the print anthology.

Submission Guidelines

Prose: Submit no more than one prose piece at a time. Prose formatting should be single-spaced and no longer than 5,000 words. Submit as Microsoft Word or PDF.

Poetry: Submit no more than three poems at a time. Poems should be formatted single-spaced as a Microsoft Word or a PDF file.

Include your full name, the title of your submission, your email address, and a short 100-ish word bio. We do not accept submissions previously published in other publications. We do, however, accept submissions previously published on personal blogs.

Four Tulips is now accepting contest submissions exclusively through Duotrope and Submittable! Click the links below to submit.