General Information
The Chautauqua philosophy has always been, since the Institution’s founding in 1874, that everyday life should integrate leisure, education, fine arts, and spirituality. Educational pursuit and artistic enrichment should not be confined to separate spaces or designated hours. Spirituality is not defined and shared only within sacred walls or books of prayer. The Chautauqua way of life encompasses all of the ways we enrich our lives: learning on vacation, leisure in work, and passion for art and life in all activities. In the pages of Chautauqua, readers will find a season between covers. Also, in keeping with the values of Chautauqua, each issue has four sections: Life of the Spirit, Life in Art, Life Lessons, and Life at Play.
The journal is published once each year in spring, in time to celebrate the opening of the Chautauqua Institution summer season.
Submissions
Our theme for 2022/2023 is “Chance Encounters.” Our Fall issue will release in early November, Spring issue in March. summer issue in late May/early June. The move to online has allowed for some new opportunities.
During this moment of challenge and change, we have had to suspend payment to writers.
Chautauqua welcomes unsolicited submissions of poetry, flash, fiction, and creative nonfiction from February 15 to April 1 and from September 1 to November 1.
Chance Encounters
We move through our lives trying to control our destinies, to fulfill our ambitions and pursue our dreams. Yet often an unexpected meeting, a trivial accident, a coincidence of events or timing brings unplanned opportunity, unprepared-for challenges, desperate struggles, unanticipated rewards, flashes of joy or self-discovery.
These chance encounters can change our lives profoundly, alter the course of our future. Call these encounters fate, luck, serendipity, or divine intervention—they upend our carefully laid plans, set us on a new and different path, leave us with lasting consequences and knowledge we never sought but—for better or worse—can never unlearn.
Chautauqua publishes writing that expresses the values of the Chautauqua Institution, broadly construed: a sense of inquiry into questions of personal, social, political, spiritual, and aesthetic importance—and when, where, and how those values and questions intersect.
The Chautauqua philosophy has always been that everyday life should integrate leisure, education, fine arts, and spirituality. Educational pursuit and artistic enrichment should not be confined to separate spaces or designated hours. Spirituality is not defined and shared only within sacred walls or books of prayer. The Chautauqua way of life encompasses all of the ways we enrich our lives: learning on vacation, leisure in work, and passion for art and life in all activities. In the pages of Chautauqua, readers will find a season between covers.
If you are considering submitting to Chautauqua, please consider ordering the current issue or preordering the next issue. You will get a thorough feel for the kind of writing we love—and, clearly, what we publish.
Submissions
Chautauqua encourages all writers to use our online Submittable portal. We made the decision to move to online submissions after a great deal of deliberation. Ultimately, online submissions enable all editors to read and respond to work more efficiently.
More Information
For more information about Chautauqua, please contact the journal directly: [email protected]