SUBMIT
Each month, Second Shift publishes one artist and one writer in the online journal. Once a year, it publishes a thematic print journal. We accept submissions for the print and online journal through Subfolio.
General Guidelines
We accept nonfiction, fiction, poetry, art, and anything else that can be reproduced as an image. Your content of your work may, but does not need to, reflect on labor or your occupation. Simultaneous submissions are welcome. The maximum word limit is 4500–this can comprise one or multiple pieces in the same document.
In general, Second Shift only accepts writing that has not been previously published, but in rare cases we are willing to make exceptions—please let us know in the submission notes if this is the case.
With your submission, please include a brief bio stating your name, age, occupation, and general area of residence (country, state, city). We do not publish bios that include prior publications, awards, or institutional affiliations, but welcome personal information of all kinds (e.g., "I love taking long walks on the beach").
The cost to submit is free and always will be.
Print Journal
Once a year, second shift publishes a thematic print journal that aims to interrogate and reframe our relationship to labor. The theme of the 2027 print journal is GLASS.
If you work with GLASS (window-washing, bartending, optometry, etc.): submit!
If you are uncertain whether or not you "work with glass": still submit!
Online Journal
Each month, second shift publishes one artist and one writer in the online journal. The online issue is unthemed.
Once a year, second shift publishes a thematic print journal that aims to interrogate and reframe our relationship to labor. The theme of the 2027 print journal is GLASS.
If you work with GLASS (window-washing, bartending, optometry, etc.): submit!
If you are uncertain whether or not you "work with glass": still submit!
Online Journal
Each month, second shift publishes one artist and one writer in the online journal. The online issue is unthemed.
Second Shift is a literary journal about art and work located in Chicago, IL, founded in spring 2026. Each month, Second Shift publishes one artist and one writer in the online journal. Once a year, it publishes a thematic print issue.
MASTHEAD
Sam Grenier, Editor
N.C. Happe, Editor
Jackson McGrath, Editor
Ballad of Job
O,
I found me in a poplar shrub...
The wounded white bark
The male appears first…
for a living mineral
for a closed quinquennial concept
for a grandfather
of face and form
seeds of a narrative song
& the fields he hies
how then’ food is praise
two… proceeding deaths
…monody
the self divided…
the bodily senses return to the corpse
the fraught cow to the three year calf
two movements of generalization
the seasonal rotation of the cattle clock
…& the fields he hies
grows wild in many places
The old account of time is true
when the sun was going down it was dark
direful out of the solitude
measure of the metric…
& the fields he hies
…For the grass is medicinal
For cumbrous corn
For the poorman’s nosegay
For the lamentations of songs and other scriptures
O, I haven't got long to live,
for we all die soon
Farmer—Ranch Hand—Concrete Finisher
Detroit, MI—Fort Belknap Agency, MT—Montreal, QC
United States—Canada
- Writing
Karolina Zhukoff, 31
PhD Student in International Security and Biotechnology at Georgia Institute of Technology, Attorney
- Art
PhD Student in International Security and Biotechnology at Georgia Institute of Technology, Attorney
- Art