We are delighted to announce that Spark Wheel Press and burntdistrict have become a part of the Nebraska Writers Collective, a vibrant nonprofit that promotes creative writing and performance poetry throughout the Midwest. This is an exciting new chapter for us, and while our editorial mission and aesthetic at SWP are unchanged, we’ll be spending some time considering how to best embrace the growth this new partnership is offering. In the short term, submissions to burntdistrict will be closed. Full length collections continue to be considered at Spark Wheel Press.
burntdistrict is a journal of contemporary poetry published by the editors of Spark Wheel Press
In the late 1800s, the Burnt District was a six-block area just north of downtown Omaha. It was an area cloaked in corruption, abuse, and disease, housing more than a hundred brothels and employing over 1,600 women. Currently, the Burnt District is experiencing a rebirth, and is a thriving community of upscale condominiums and locally-owned businesses. It houses two new sport venues and plenty of green space. Within the dark corners of the original Burnt District, the city saw the potential for light.
Jen Lambert holds an MFA from the University of Nebraska, and her work has been published in a variety of anthologies and journals, including the LA Review, the Raleigh Review and Boxcar Poetry Review.
Liz Kay holds an MFA from the University of Nebraska, where she was the recipient of both an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Wendy Fort Foundation Prize for exemplary work in poetry. In 2008, she was awarded a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for excellence in lyric poetry. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Nimrod, Willow Springs, The New York Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review, Redactions, and Sugar House Review.
Raylyn Clacher is an intern with burntdistrict. She maintains our poem of the week series and takes on other largely thankless tasks.
A regular interview series with burntdistrict and Spark Wheel Press poets can be found on the Spark Wheel Press blog.
Contact us at editors (at) burntdistrict.org. Please note, submissions are accepted through our submissions manager only. Emailed submissions will be discarded.
burntdistrict 
How does one access your submissions manager? There seems to be no link on your website at burntdistrict.org.
There is a link on our submissions page, but the address is https://burntdistrict.submittable.com/submit
Looking forward to reading your work!
Hi there – great to see your journal! Do you compensate contributors?
Thanks so much, Allison! Contributors receive a one year subscription beginning with the issue in which their work appears. Though we can’t pay, we’re always looking for ways to promote our writers and their work. And we give them free stuff at AWP. That counts, right?
do you accept submissions that have previously appeared in blogs?
No, we don’t accept poems that have been previously published anywhere. Thanks for checking.
Thanks for the quick reply, just one more question. What’s your normal turnaround time on submissions?
Hmm. We try to keep it under 2 months normally, but lately we’ve been taking as long as 4. In our defense, we have 2 new collections coming out through Spark Wheel Press, and they’ve taken a lot of our time. We should catch up on submissions by AWP.