
We Welcome Your Submission
Please click on the appropriate header here to read the instructions for submitting Fiction and Nonfiction – Short Takes – Poetry – Art and Illustrations – and Forum Comments.
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© 2025 Persimmon Tree Inc. Persimmon Tree Inc. reserves all rights to everything published in www.persimmontree.org. We support our contributors who succeed in being published elsewhere, and hereby give permission to any contributor to reprint her work in another venue, provided that the reprint, whether on the internet or in hard copy, includes an acknowledgement that the work was originally published in Persimmon Tree.
IMPORTANT SUBMISSIONS REQUIREMENT:
For your work to be considered by Persimmon Tree, you must be a subscriber. Subscriptions are free. Sign up for your subscription here.
Fiction and Nonfiction
We welcome previously unpublished pieces under 3,500 words, written by women over sixty. Submissions may be sent to us any time during the year. Multiple submissions are accepted. If you want to send more than one piece, put them in separate emails.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please inform us immediately if any item in your submission is accepted elsewhere.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Submissions should be in Word, double-spaced, with 12-point type and numbered pages. At the top of the first page please enter author’s name, address, telephone number, and email address.
Please send your submission as an attachment to us at: editor@persimmontree.org. Type the title of the piece, labeled fiction or nonfiction, in the subject line. Include a brief biographical statement (less than 50 words) and a headshot in your email.
Short Takes
Please read and follow these instructions carefully. We regret that we cannot accept any submission that does not follow these guidelines. In particular, make sure that the address on your email is correct.
Issue #75 – Summer 2025—Celebrating 75 issues
Projected publication date: Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Submissions will be accepted: May 7 to May 12
(Please do not submit earlier or later than those dates.)
Your submission must be under 500 words. Submit it to us as a Word document; be sure your name, address, phone number, and email address are all in the Word document. Send us the document by an email addressed to publisher@persimmontree.org, and type “Short Take” in the subject line of the email. Include a headshot and short bio (no more than 50 words) in the email.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Issue #76–Fall 2025–Putting It All Away
Projected publication date: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Submissions will be accepted: August 11 to August 15
(Please do not submit earlier or later than those dates.)
Your submission must be under 500 words. Submit it to us as a Word document; be sure your name, address, phone number, and email address are all in the Word document. Send us the document by an email addressed to publisher@persimmontree.org, and type “Short Take” in the subject line of the email.
Include a headshot and short bio (no more than 50 words) in the email.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Issue #77–Winter 2025/2026–Friendship and Other Gifts
Projected publication date: Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Submissions will be accepted: November 17 to November 21
(Please do not submit earlier or later than those dates.)
Your submission must be under 500 words. Submit it to us as a Word document; be sure your name, address, phone number, and email address are all in the Word document. Send us the document by an email addressed to publisher@persimmontree.org, and type “Short Take” in the subject line of the email.
Include a headshot and short bio (no more than 50 words) in the email.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Issue #78–Spring 2026-The Cultures of Childhood
Publication date: To be announced
Submissions will be accepted: To be announced
(Please do not submit earlier or later than those dates.)
Your submission must be under 500 words. Submit it to us as a Word document; be sure your name, address, phone number, and email address are all in the Word document. Send us the document by an email addressed to publisher@persimmontree.org, and type “Short Take” in the subject line of the email.
Include a headshot and short bio (no more than 50 words) in the email.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Issue #79–Summer 2026–Mending the Breach–or Not
Publication date: To be announced
Submissions will be accepted: To be announced
(Please do not submit earlier or later than those dates.)
Your submission must be under 500 words. Submit it to us as a Word document; be sure your name, address, phone number, and email address are all in the Word document. Send us the document by an email addressed to publisher@persimmontree.org, and type “Short Take” in the subject line of the email.
Include a headshot and short bio (no more than 50 words) in the email.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Poetry
Twice each year, Persimmon Tree publishes collections of poems by our readers and other older women poets. Our summer 2025 issue, which will be published in mid-June, will feature the work of poets who are currently living outside the United States. If you are a woman poet 60 years old and older, and are currently living outside the United States, you are invited to submit.
The submissions window opens March 20, and closes on Tuesday, April 15. Work submitted earlier or later than those dates will not be considered.
Your poems may be on any topic, but preferably no longer than one page each. You may submit up to three poems, all of which must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please inform us immediately if any poems in your submission are accepted elsewhere.
Your submission should be in a Word document, single-spaced (double-spaced only if that is how you wish the poem to appear), in 12-point type. Please include your name, address, telephone number, and email address at the top of each page of the document.
Attach your submission to an email and send it to poetry@persimmontree.org. The subject line of the email should read “Poetry Submission Summer 2025.” Also include in the email a headshot and a short (no more than 50 words) bio. We regret that the volume of entries makes it impossible for us to acknowledge receipt of your email.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe.
The Guest Poetry Editor (who will coordinate with Cynthia Hogue, our Poetry Editor, in selecting and introducing the poetry for this special section) is the award-winning poet and director of the Writing Center at Bucknell University, Deirdre O’Connor.
The regional rotation is as follows:
- Summer 2025: International (for poets living outside the US or in a US Territory),
- Winter 2025/2026: East (the coastal states from Maine to Florida, and also Mississippi, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Alabama),
- Summer 2026: West (the coastal states, and Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico).
- Winter 2026/2027: Central (the Midwest, the Great Plains, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri)
Art and Illustrations
Although the artists who are featured on our dedicated art page are chosen by our art editor, we welcome submissions of work in all media for display and illustration throughout the rest of the magazine. You are invited to send up to five samples of your work (in jpg format, 72 dpi) by email addressed to publisher@persimmontree.org. Include in the email, the title and medium of each work, a headshot, your name, postal address, phone number, email address, and a short biographical statement (less than 50 words). Submissions may be sent at any time during the year.
You must be subscribed to submit; click here to subscribe. Submissions and subscriptions are free.
Forum
Readers will be asked to contribute to each issue of the magazine their views on questions of moment to the Persimmon Tree community of older women writers and artists. Please do not submit anything at this time. We will let you know when the submissions window opens for the next issue, and what the topic will be.

Preparing and sharing meals with one another nurtures and sustains, comforts and consoles, and heightens our pleasures. We are a nation of immigrants who have brought to America dishes from all over the world. It is more important than ever that we sit at one another’s table and break bread together.
Every palate will find something to satisfy their tastes in these poems and recipes from the various cultures blending in America’s stewpot. You will even learn how to read fortunes in a cup of Armenian Coffee. Available from Raven & Wren Press and select bookstores.




Bio
