Submissions Call:

The Tower is an undergraduate print literary magazine produced by students at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus. The magazine is distributed on the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus and online for free. This year The Tower is seeking fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual art, and hybrid submissions from undergraduate students at any university or college in the state of Minnesota pertaining to the theme of “Passages.”

Tunnels, corridors, roads, and rivers. Doors behind bookcases, trapdoors under the stairs, paths of desire cutting through the woods. A journey, a quest, a voyage. Passages take many forms. In their simplest sense, passages bring you from point A to point B, from beginnings to ends, from firsts to lasts. Passages happen through space, through time, through individuals and communities. It’s growth, it’s movement, it’s change.

How did you (or we) get here? Where have you (we) been? Where are you (we) going? Passages come from a choice to change; they result from pure inertia, necessity, resignation, and sometimes something in between. 

We accept submissions starting on October 10th, 2025 through our Submittable, which is accessible on The Tower website. Please include a short cover letter with your contact information and a brief author bio written in the third person, suitable for publication including your year, major, and institute of study. Further specifications are available in each genre’s Submittable. Submissions will be read during the fall semester, and the issue will be published during the spring semester. Please email us at thetower@umn.edu with any further questions.

Submissions close January 5th, 2026. 

Acquisition Standards:

1. We look for works from Minnesota undergraduate students (who may be attending any university in Minnesota) that are original, authentic, and emotionally resonant.
2. We encourage submissions from LGBTQ+ and BIPOC artists to give voice to the many perspectives and communities that call Minnesota home.
3. We accept simultaneous submissions on the condition that if a piece is accepted elsewhere, the artist communicates this with the editors and withdraws the piece from consideration.
4. We do not publish work that is hateful towards any marginalized community or could be construed as hateful.
5. The Tower reserves the right to rescind planned publication at any time according to the guidelines outlined above.

NOTE: This edition of The Tower seeks to demonstrate the value of human creativity. As such, submissions that employ generative AI in any capacity will not be considered.