Nachtljocht
Fiction worth staying up for
Nachtljocht is a quarterly literary journal devoted to fiction and short plays.
Each issue brings together work from emerging and established writers across genres, forms, and styles, with an emphasis on fiction that is emotionally precise, formally confident, and unafraid of strangeness. The journal has no house style and no interest in literary gatekeeping; a quiet domestic piece may appear beside speculative fiction, horror, historical romance, or surrealism if the work feels necessary and fully realized.
Rather than chasing trends or cultural performance, Nachtljocht is interested in stories with interiority, atmosphere, conviction, and artistic intent. Nachtljocht especially values voices working outside conventional literary pathways and seeks to create space for fiction that might otherwise go overlooked.
Designed as a substantial quarterly volume rather than a disposable magazine, each issue of Nachtljocht is intended to be read, collected, and returned to over time.
Founder and Editor in Chief
What we're looking for
We are interested in fiction that lingers. Stories with clear artistic intention, memorable language, and the confidence to become fully themselves. We welcome literary fiction alongside speculative, historical, horror, surreal, and other forms of imaginative work. We are not looking for a particular genre. We are looking for stories that stay with us.
What we take
Previously unpublished fiction and plays between 3,000 and 12,000 words. No genre restrictions. No content restrictions.
"Previously unpublished" includes personal blogs, newsletters, social media posts, public forums, and any work that has already appeared online in a publicly accessible form.
Upcoming deadlines
Volume 3 (February 2027) — submissions open 1 October 2026.
Formatting requirements
Submit your manuscript as a PDF. Include your name and the title of the work on the first page.
Use 12pt Times New Roman, double spacing, 2.54 cm (1 inch) margins, and page numbers throughout.
For fiction, indicate scene breaks with a centred ***.
Simultaneous submissions
Fine by us. Just let us know immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
Submission fee
There is a $3 submission fee per piece. The fee helps support the practical costs of running Nachtljocht and allows us to continue reading and publishing new fiction. Any optional contribution above the standard fee is purely a way to support Nachtljocht and has no effect on editorial consideration, response time, acceptance, or publication.
Submission fees are non-refundable once a submission has been received, except in the case of a duplicate payment or confirmed technical error.
The submission fee also includes a digital copy of the most recent issue of Nachtljocht, delivered to you by email upon submission.
Rights
We acquire first serial rights only. Nachtljocht publishes the work first and retains the published edition in our archive. All other rights remain with the author. You are free to republish the work elsewhere after it appears in Nachtljocht.
Payment
We pay authors $15 USD per accepted piece, payable at the time of publication. Contributors also receive one complimentary copy of the print edition.
AI policy
Nachtljocht does not publish work written by large language models, and we do not use them in our submissions process. Your work is read by a real person, start to finish, every time. We are not interested in policing writers or creating unnecessary suspicion; we simply ask that the work you submit be your own.
We will never upload your submission to an AI detector. These systems are not reliable enough to determine authorship. We find the practice demeaning to writers and believe it creates an atmosphere of paranoia while outsourcing the judgement of fiction, ironically enough, to a machine.
How to submit
Use the submission form below. Upload your manuscript as a PDF. No pitch, summary, or author bio is required.
Upload one manuscript per submission. If multiple files or pieces are included in a single submission, only the first eligible piece will be considered. Additional pieces will not be read, and the submission fee will not be refunded.
Submission window
Submissions will open 1 October 2026.
First Serial Rights - An Explanation
We acquire First Serial Rights only if your work is accepted for publication. This gives us the right to be the first to publish the piece, in print and/or online.
You retain full copyright and ownership of your work.
We ask that accepted work not be published elsewhere before it appears in Nachtljocht.
After publication, all rights revert to you. You are free to republish the work elsewhere, and we appreciate an acknowledgment that it first appeared in Nachtljocht.
For any inquiries outside of submissions, send a message via the form below.
Social Media
Nachtljocht does not maintain social-media accounts. Official announcements, submissions information, new releases, and other updates are published exclusively through nachtljocht.com and the Nachtljocht newsletter.
Any social-media account claiming to represent Nachtljocht or Nachtljocht Press is unauthorised. Please use the contact information on this website for all correspondence.
We believe in attention. Slow work. Honest language.
We publish fiction that is strange, sincere, and alive.
We make space for the overlooked, the unconventional, and the uncompromising.
We value beauty without ornament. Ideas without hierarchy. People without performance.
Attend to sincerity. To the unfinished. To what resists. To what remains unexplained.
Sincerity needs no alibi.
We believe the work can be earnest without apology, beautiful without ornament, and quiet without emptiness.
A story is not a product. It is one person giving sustained attention to another. Not a transaction. Not a performance. A meeting.
We attend to the strange, the tender, the difficult, the ordinary, and the unfinished—not because they are fashionable, but because they are true to the complexity of being human.
A story need not be literary. It need not be experimental. It need not be realist. It need only become a place where two interior lives meet long enough to recognize one another.
Not for the algorithm. Not for the market.
The writer leaves changed. The reader leaves changed. Neither remains exactly as they were.
We are not interested in what sells. We are interested in what stays.
We trust the reader. We trust the writer. We trust the work to do what it must.
Genre is not a boundary. Form is not a hierarchy. The human is our only criterion.
Fiction remembers. Fiction questions. Fiction transforms.
Publish what cannot be exhausted by a single reading. Publish what invites return. Publish what endures.