FOR WRITERS & READERS

Chapter & Chronicle was created for people who believe stories are still worth making room for.

For readers, it is a place to discover original writing across fantasy, fiction, essays, culture, reflection, and health and wellbeing. Some pieces will carry you far from the familiar. Others may bring you closer to yourself. The magazine is designed for wandering as much as searching: for the reader who comes looking for one thing and finds another voice, another doorway, another world.

For writers, Chapter & Chronicle exists as an invitation.

We welcome ideas from independent writers, emerging writers, unpublished writers, and those who have carried a story quietly for some time and are ready to see whether it might belong somewhere. You do not need an agent, a publishing history, or an established platform to approach us. You need a voice, an idea, and the willingness to shape it with care.

We are interested in stories and series with atmosphere, character, imagination, and emotional consequence. We are interested in essays that notice what others overlook. We are interested in writing about wellbeing that feels honest rather than decorative. We are interested in fantasy that understands wonder, fiction that understands people, and commentary that understands complexity. Above all, we are interested in work that feels alive.

Selected contributors may have the opportunity to be featured on Chapter & Chronicle, with their work reviewed and edited by the Editor-in-Chief before publication. The editorial process is intended to strengthen the piece while preserving the writer’s own voice. We want contributors to feel supported, not absorbed into something impersonal. A good editor should help a piece become more fully itself.

Unlike many publishing spaces, Chapter & Chronicle does not ask writers to surrender ownership of their original work in order to be featured. Contributors retain the intellectual property rights to the writing they create. Their stories remain their stories. Their characters remain their characters. Their worlds remain their worlds. Where a piece is accepted, the writer grants Chapter & Chronicle permission to edit and publish it in the agreed form, but ownership remains with the writer.

This principle matters to us because creative work is personal before it is public. A story may contain years of private thought, fragments of memory, an imagined world built in secret, or a character who has followed the writer for half a lifetime. Publication should honour that labour. It should not quietly take control of it.

Our hope is that Chapter & Chronicle can become a platform for independent voices: a place where new writers can be read, where developing writers can gain confidence, and where strong work may attract further opportunities beyond the magazine. If a contributor’s time with us helps them reach readers, approach agents, speak to publishers, or continue with greater belief in their own work, that is something we would consider a success.

We cannot publish every submission or pursue every idea, but every serious proposal should be approached with respect. A story does not need to be fashionable to be worthwhile. A writer does not need to be widely known to have something remarkable to offer. Some voices arrive quietly. Some stories begin modestly. Many need only the right page, the right reader, and the right moment.

Writers who would like to submit an idea for a story, series, essay, or feature are invited to contact Chapter & Chronicle through the website contact form or by email at hello@chapterchronicle.org.uk. Please include your name, a short introduction, the nature of the piece you would like to propose, and any relevant details about the work or series you have in mind.

If you are a reader, thank you for giving these pieces your time.

If you are a writer, perhaps this is where one of your stories begins.

— The Editorial Team