Hello and happy spring!

As many of you know, our 10th year is now underway. Soon after reopening to submissions in early January, we closed again to poetry and then fiction, due to heavy volume. Stay tuned for reopening dates soon. Additionally, next Tuesday, March 31, we will close to essays. We will remain open to book reviews, artists on craft essays, and photography. As always, find more details on our Submit page.

For writers who submitted since we reopened: if you’ve not heard from us about the status of your work, we will be in touch as soon as possible. Generally we need about three months to review work, sometimes longer. Please reach out by email at thesunlightpress@gmail.com if you’ve still not heard from us after four months. Writers, also please read guidelines before submitting. Often writers submit a genre we’re closed to; submit beyond the word guidelines; submit more than one written piece at a time; submit again immediately after we have declined their work; submit a type of work we don’t publish (for ex., political, or religious in tone). We also don’t publish AI-generated submissions. All of these are addressed on our Submit page. On our homepage, please note that you can peruse any category and read previously published work, or on our About page, read more about who we are. It’s a huge help on our end when work is submitted correctly.

As for any upcoming writing contests, we will announce our plans for the year soon. Please stay tuned.

Each March we offer a By the Numbers feature. This being our 10th year, we looked back at numbers from 2017 when we launched to compare with where we are now. (Please note that donations by readers do not cover all the costs of artist honorariums. That difference is made up by donations from the two of us.)

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By the Numbers:

• Honorariums
  Honorariums paid artists (2025): $6,035
  Honorariums paid artists (2017): $2,960
• Total Website Views
  Total views (2025): 79,044
  Total views (2017) : 40,477
• Total Submissions
  Total submissions (2025): 835
  Total submissions (2017): 509
• Total Acceptances
  Total acceptances (2025): 117
  Total acceptances (2017): 198
• Total Donations
  Total donations by readers (2025): $4,285 (used solely for artist honorariums)
  Total donations by readers (2017): $460 (used solely for artist honorariums)
• Since launching in 2017….
  Total number of writing/photography contests held: 12
  Amount awarded to contest winners/finalists: $4,400
• Genres published most since opening….
  Poetry: 400
  Fiction: 321
  Essays: 320
  Total posts (all genres): 1,416
• Staff (all volunteers): Nine, including us

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Though we occasionally close to submissions, we’re always open to donations. Please read more about our nonprofit journal on the Support page, and know we are grateful for contribution, big or small. Thank you, and again, happy spring!

Warmly,
Beth and Rudri

Rudri Patel & Beth Burrell
Editors
The Sunlight Press