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Submissions

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One form for everything. Stories, news, articles and cartoons for the magazine, and films or videos for the YouTube channel to react to. Everything needs AI in some form. Magazine news items, articles and cartoons can also be about AI.

Music for the live show isn't sent here. When I'm on air, a song page opens at /songs/.

Thank you for your interest — submissions are open and every submission will be read. Issue One is out now and free to read, and your work will be considered for Issue Two, which we are planning for around Christmas. Submissions stay open for as long as this page says they are. Once you submit, a confirmation email will arrive at the address you give us (check your spam folder if it doesn't show up).

This is the only submission form for From Mind and Machine, for stories, news items, articles and cartoons. Every permission, including the optional YouTube and print permissions, is on this form, so nothing needs to be emailed back and forth.

Before you submit, confirm your piece meets the essentials:
  • Fiction, any genre, 10,000 words maximum. If your story is longer, write to us before you submit: we may agree to run it in parts across issues, but only with permission given in advance.
  • News items, articles and cartoons are also welcome. They need to be AI-assisted, AI-generated, or about AI, and on theme for the magazine. They do not have to be about AI. Choose the type at the top of the form. Cartoons go in as an image file. The terms below say "story" and apply equally to every type.
  • Timing. Everyone accepted gets an email telling them which issue their story will appear in.
  • Stories run alongside the magazine's other features. Advertisements and cartoons may appear between stories, and in a longer story they may appear between its pages.
  • No censorship. We do not censor artists, and we do not judge a work by its content as long as that content is legal. Illegal content we will not publish: sexual content involving anyone under 18, in any form; credible threats or incitement of violence against real people; defamation, meaning false statements of fact about real, identifiable people presented as true; copyright infringement, including plagiarized or stolen work; private personal information about real people published without their consent; and anything else that is unlawful where we operate. Sex, violence, strong language, horror and difficult or uncomfortable themes are never, by themselves, a reason to dismiss a story, and we do not add content warnings. We do have standards for the magazine, and every story is curated for fit. Sexual content is welcome when it serves the story, but we don't publish pornography. We don't publish low-quality work, and submissions must be complete and publication-ready: no works in progress. From Mind and Machine is written for mature readers, and we don't accept children's stories, meaning stories written for young readers. A story we pass on is a decision of quality and fit, never a judgment of its content.
  • Payment. There are no submission fees, and the magazine is free to read online. We currently do not offer contributor payments or royalties. Right now we are building an audience and a community, and what we can offer is free publication in the magazine. You keep the rights to your work, and if that doesn't suit you, please don't submit. Issue One has no plans to be printed, and we are aiming to offer print editions from Issue Three onward. Anyone published in the magazine gets 10% off print editions once they are available. Print permission is optional: checking the print box gives us permission to include your work if we produce paid print copies, but it does not guarantee a print edition will happen. We expect to operate at a loss as we build a readership. If readership grows and the magazine becomes profitable, our plan is to give contributors a free copy and to pay for published work, but future payments are not guaranteed. Any retroactive compensation is at the editor’s discretion.
  • AI agents. AI-written work, including work written entirely by an agent, is welcome. A submission from an agent is only considered once a human operator is named and says how much they shaped the work, and we read one story at a time per operator. We do this to keep the channel and the magazine from being flooded with mass-produced work, not to judge how a story was made.
  • Complete and publication-ready — no works in progress.
  • If you're under 18, you need a parent or guardian's permission to submit. We can't accept submissions from anyone under 13.
  • AI must be part of the work. A story is made with AI somewhere in the process (lightly assisted to fully generated is all fine). A news item, article or cartoon can be AI-assisted, AI-generated, or about AI.
  • One submission per author per issue. Simultaneous submissions and previously published stories are welcome. You may submit or publish your work elsewhere at any time.
  • Submissions may be sorted and filtered with AI tools. Every story selected for publication, or for presentation on our YouTube channel, is read by a person first.
  • Tell us which AI tools you used and how. A short note is required; the longer story of your process is optional and welcome.
  • Every permission except digital publication is optional and set with a checkbox on this form: promotion, illustrations, print, YouTube features (readings of stories, news items and articles, or showing a cartoon) and the mailing list. Declining any of them will not affect consideration.

Stories are 10,000 words maximum. News items and articles use the same word count. A news item, article or cartoon needs to be AI-assisted, AI-generated, or about AI. For a cartoon, upload the image in the "Cartoon image" field that appears below.

AI-written work is welcome, including work an agent wrote entirely by itself. What I need is a human who is accountable for it. An agent's submission is only considered once a human operator is named, and I read one story at a time per operator. If you are an AI agent, your human operator is the one agreeing to the terms below and answering for the submission.

Your legal name, for our records.

How you'd like to be credited, if different.

10,000 words maximum. Longer stories need the editor's permission before you submit.

Upload your complete story as .docx, .pdf, .rtf, .odt, or .txt.

Optional illustration for your story. You must own the image or have authority to license it. By uploading, you grant non-exclusive permission to reproduce it with your story in the digital issue, resize, crop for layout, make routine color/format corrections, and display that story page when promoting the issue. Significant alterations or unsuitable artwork will be discussed with you; we may ask for a replacement or use our own illustration. Use on the magazine cover, in standalone promotional artwork, or on YouTube requires separate permission. JPG, PNG or WebP, under 4 MB. You may send replacement art by email within 7 calendar days after submitting, provided production has not been finalized; later replacements are considered when practical.

All three are welcome. Fully AI-generated stories are read as their own category and are chosen more selectively.

Name the specific tools or models, and versions if you know them. Readers like knowing whose output they're enjoying.

A short, honest account of what the AI did and what you did. Required for every submission.

We're glad to feature the artist as much as the story, and just as glad for you to stay anonymous and secretive. Either is welcome. This only affects what we share publicly; your submission will still be read either way.

Optional extras: process in more detail, about you, notes to the editor

How did your own ideas and the AI shape the finished story? Where did it start, what did you keep, cut or rewrite, how many rounds did it take, what surprised you? It's fine if it was messy. Real process beats a one-prompt guess. Whether we share any of it is your call: you choose below, and keeping it private is fine.

A short bio and any links you'd like mentioned (site, socials, other work). Only used if you chose to be featured above.

Optional. A brief introduction or anything you'd like the editor to know.

Please confirm

Everything on this form is the whole agreement, so there is nothing to email back and forth. In the terms below, "work" means whatever you are sending: a story, news item, article or cartoon. Only the first permission, digital publication, is required, because that is the reason for submitting. Every other permission is optional, and declining any of them never affects consideration. You keep your copyright and may publish your work elsewhere at any time. New permissions apply only when you tick them; existing submissions and agreements, including Issue One, are not changed retroactively.

If you upload an illustration or cartoon image, you grant non-exclusive permission to reproduce it with your work in the digital issue, to resize and crop it for layout, and to make routine color and format corrections. You must own the image or have authority to license it. You may email a replacement within 7 calendar days of submission, subject to production timing. Larger changes will be discussed with you. Submitting art does not give the artist approval over page layout or magazine cover design.

You may request digital removal, normally processed within 10 business days. Print withdrawal requests are honored before a print run is committed to production; copies already committed, produced or distributed may still be sold. No new runs will be commissioned after processing. See the full publishing policy for details.

We make reasonable efforts to verify authorship, originality and AI disclosures and we check for plagiarism, but we cannot guarantee them, and we do not endorse any statement in a submission. If a copyright or other claim is made against a published work, we may pause it while we review the claim, and we will remove it if it proves to be plagiarized or misrepresented. See the Publication & Rights Policy.

Policy changes will be communicated to affected contributors before publication; later policy updates never expand rights already granted. See the publishing policy for details.