Melange – a work of art or literature that combines multiple forms, genres, and/or media.
Thank you for your interest in Melange.
We publish both original melanges and scholarship on melanges. Every creative soul may submit; whether you are affiliated with Princeton or not, whether you are a student or a professor emeritus, whether you are in academia or not, your thoughts are welcome.
You may submit up to 3 works per semester. While there is no page limit, we may not be able to review submissions over 25 pages until the following semester.
Our Spring 2025 deadline for submissions is April 15th.
We invite you to look at the guidelines that best suit your work:
Prose Poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose. It’s basically poetry in disguise.
How do you see through the disguise?
As creative writers, we would like you to tell us! When submitting prose poetry to Melange, we ask you for a short 1-3 sentence statement on why you consider your work a prose poem. This statement will be published if your work is accepted. The goal is not to limit prose poetry, but to develop a collective contemporary theory of genre based on information from practitioners.
Over the years, prose poetry has come in many flavors, several of which include: pastels in prose, prosulas, rhapsodies, fantasy dictionary entries, prose sonnets, exams, Cubist prose poems, footnotes, prosems, conference programs, sketches, Romantic fragments, fancies, polyphonic prose, improvisations, and brochures. You are welcome to draw from this list, or add to it.
Essays
We invite traditional essays that offer rigorous, clear, thought-provoking analyses of melanges. You may write about a single melange, or a pattern you observe among melanges. Melanges have been present throughout history, so we would welcome essays covering myriad places and time periods.
We also welcome creative essays that strive to teach us something new in a dynamic, engaging way. Examples would be essays in verse, poetic prose essays, photo essays, or plays with relevant critical terms as characters, among others.
Visual Art
For visual melanges, we would consider art with mixed media components, single works of art comprising various styles, art with words in it, words as art, or art that exists in ekphrastic dialogue with an original written work. This list is by no means exhaustive; surprise us!
Translations
Melange welcomes English translations of your own original melanges. We also invite you to submit multi-language works, accompanied by translations for the non-English portions.
You may submit translations of others’ melanges, as long as your work complies with copyright laws.
Combinations of the Above
Melange also invites combinations of the categories listed above.
If your combination includes or references someone else’s work, please make sure to give credit where it is due.
How to Submit
To submit your work, please email the following to: melange@princeton.edu
- Your submission in either a Microsoft Word Document, PNG, or JPG file containing no identifying information.
- A 1-3 sentence answer to one of the following questions:
- How does your creative submission combine genres, forms, and/or media?
- How does the subject of your essay (or creative essay) combine genres, forms, and/or media?
- How does your translation combine genres, forms, and/or media?
- Is your work a prose poem? If yes, please tell us why in 1-3 sentences. If accepted, your response to this question will be published.
- A 1-3 sentence biography. If your submission is accepted, your bio will be published. You may also choose to publish anonymously. Please do not include your bio in the same file as your submission.
Thank you!
We do not accept AI-generated submissions, plagiarized material, propaganda, discriminatory content, or anything else that does not comply with Princeton’s values as stated in Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities.