It’s chaotic good. It’s giving Furbies howling at the blood moon. It’s that reoccurring dream you keep having about David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (just me?).

We like 80s and 90s nostalgia, nods to pop culture, and vulnerability. We like good writing that doesn’t take itself too seriously. We also like being surprised and things that don’t quite follow the rules so, if your work is none of this but you think we’ll like it, send it anyway. This space is for letting creativity flow without getting in our own heads.

At our minty liquid core, Icebreakers is about fostering connection within the lit community. As such, general and themed submissions should be the work of two or more authors / artists (no max). If you’re coming to the party with collaborators already in mind, great! If not, please see our “Spin the Bottle” opportunity below for artists 18+.

Interested in working with someone new? Let us do the matchmaking for you! Here’s how it works:

Fill out this form

We’ll do our best to match you with one or more writers/artists we think you’ll vibe with. Or randomly. (random = best)

We’ll put you in contact and the rest is up to you.

We love our young artists (please submit to our issue!), but in order to keep our community safe, Spin the Bottle is only for artists 18+

If for whatever reason working with your match(es) isn’t, well, working, please do not hesitate to send us an email letting us know. We’ll do our best to rematch you so you can make the submission deadline (no promises on this one), or you are welcome to choose your own collaborators.

Please submit all work through our Submittable page

In addition to these more “formal” submissions, all work created through our Ice Ice Baby Collaborative Challenges on Twitter will be published on the website.

We aim to respond to all submissions within 1 month. We thank you for your patience as we spend time with your work. Oh, and at any given time one (or more) of us may open the queue, close their eyes, and randomly select mid-queued things to read and respond to. So even if you're last in line, there's a chance you could hear back tomorrow. Like the lottery but more random and fun. Dopamine for dopamine's sake. We're calling this Gremlin reading. It's in its beta version.

Don’t overthink this. Just write. We’re not really concerned with fonts and sizing and all that jazz. The only exception to this is that, if we are having a tough time displaying your work on the website, we may suggest changes for accessibility. We do prefer that written submissions be sent as a Word doc, unless there are formatting concerns, in which case please also send as a pdf.

Icebreakers is interested in poetry, flash, art, fiction, essays, CNF, that weird little thing you wrote in your notes app but don’t know what to call, etc. We want your art, and we know that art comes in many glorious forms. We aren’t too picky about rules, but to keep this reasonable, here are a few requests:

- Poetry – up to 3 pieces in any form, any length

- Micro and flash fiction – 3 pieces per submission

-Micro and flash CNF - 3 pieces per submission

- Visual Art – up to 3 high resolution images

- Short fiction, CNF, and everything else – 1 piece per submission, 2500 words or under (unless stated otherwise in calls for submissions)

We also accept simultaneous submissions and previously published work. Just let us know if you’re published elsewhere so we can do a little celebratory dance with you.

We love our community and never want to inhibit your creative expression and sharing of art, so previously published on social media and personal blogs are all good by us!

Most of our calls are super specific and created in-the-moment, but if you have something previously published that you feel is a great fit, we’re open to taking a look! Just please make sure the rights have been returned to you and your partner(s), and let us know in the cover.

Most importantly, we’re not accepting anything abusive or harmful to the community. Icebreakers promises to be diligent in creating a safe space for writers, readers, and artists. We take this responsibility seriously, especially considering the vulnerable element that comes along with collaborative creating. This includes, but is not limited to, work that is harmful to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Neurodivergent, and marginalized community members. Moreover, if we have paired you with someone exhibiting this behavior, please let us know so we can keep the space safe.

Found a typo after you hit the ‘send’ button? No worries. We will proofread all accepted pieces. We might also suggest light edits, but we won’t change anything without your approval. You will always receive proofs to review.

Some of our sub calls will have !!AUTOMATIC ACCEPTANCES!! As such, we may suggest creative edits to your piece. Because of the nature of collaborations (with your community and us!) these might, in some cases, be a little different than standard copyedits. It’s ultimately your choice as to whether or not you’d like to take the suggestions, of course, as this is your art. At any time you're free to walk away, but know we always love you and we're happy to suggest other homes for your work if you decide to head out of ours.

If accepted, you grant us first publication and archival rights, and the rights always return to you AND your writing buddies. Please be cool and credit (and tag!) Icebreakers Lit if your work is published elsewhere in the future. We love celebrating you. Seriously. <3

Unfortunately, we are not YET a paying market.