For Writers

A call for submissions will be announced on Submittable, Facebook, and Instagram in early 2027. Follow us on social media for updates.

We Want Writing That Matters.

The Mesilla Valley Independent invites submissions of exceptional fiction, creative nonfiction, journalism, essays, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction for its annual literary journal.

We seek originality, depth, imagination, and craft. Tell us a story we won't forget. Illuminate a life or place we might otherwise overlook. Challenge an assumption, uncover a truth, or show us something familiar in a new light.

We welcome emerging and established writers, from the borderlands and beyond. You do not need to write about New Mexico or the Southwest to submit.

Our goal is to publish work worthy of lasting attention—and to help eligible published work find opportunities for recognition through appropriate literary awards and anthologies. Although eligibility and selection are determined by the individual awards and anthologies, we intend to give outstanding work serious consideration for such opportunities. Send us your best work.

Beyond Publication

We believe outstanding writing deserves the opportunity to reach its fullest audience.

The Mesilla Valley Independent will actively consider eligible published work for nomination or submission to appropriate literary prizes, national anthologies, and other forms of recognition. Depending on the work and applicable rules, these may include the Pushcart Prize, the O. Henry Prize Stories, the Best American series, and awards recognizing short fiction, essays, flash writing, and journalism.

Publication does not guarantee eligibility, nomination, selection, or an award. Our commitment is to identify exceptional work, understand the opportunities available to it, and make a good-faith effort to help it receive the recognition it merits.

A personal note from the editor….

Some people have asked why I didn’t revive The Mesilla Valley Independent as a weekly, journalism-focused local newspaper, as it was founded to be in 1877. My reasons for making it an annual literary and journalism magazine are both practical and philosophical.

Practically speaking, I want this to be a publication that highlights excellent, thoughtful writers, and I don’t think I’m capable of producing 52 excellent issues a year. But with time and great contributors, I think I can produce one excellent issue a year.

The philosophical reason—which, admittedly, may just be intellectual lipstick on the practical one—involves a question: How much of today’s news will matter next week, next year, or 150 years from now?

This isn’t a publication devoted to the latest headlines. It’s a publication for readers and writers willing to spend more time thinking, reading, and writing about ideas that endure.

Dwight M. Kealy

Attorney & Editor

The Mesilla Valley Independent

(In the tradition of Albert Jennings Fountain, Attorney & Founding Editor, The Mesilla Valley Independent, 1877).

A Final Thought for Writers

Those who read the history pages carefully may notice that the original Mesilla Valley Independent included a Spanish-language section, El Independiente del Valle de la Mesilla. In keeping with that history, I intend to reserve a small amount of space in the magazine for exceptional Spanish-language and bilingual Spanish-English work. Although the magazine will be published primarily in English for an audience of predominantly English-speaking readers, I welcome submissions in either language and hope to include one or two outstanding works that reflect the richness of our region's linguistic and cultural heritage.