Founded in 2011, Border Crossing is an online literary and arts journal published by the Lake Superior State University Creative Writing Program. Uniquely situated on the border of the United States and Canada, we’re committed to publishing the best work submitted by emerging and established writers on both sides of the border and abroad, as well as supporting literacy and the literary arts in the sister cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Ontario.
We’re especially interested in writing that crosses boundaries in genre or geography, and voices that aren’t often heard in mainstream publications. The best way to see what we mean by this is to read our latest issue online. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry submissions are read blind and go through a rigorous editorial process, which involves multiple readings by our editorial board. As a “teaching journal,” one of our main goals is to create editing and publishing opportunities for our English and creative writing students prior to graduation through our internships.
Our past issues have featured talented Canadian, American, and Mexican writers and artists whose work has appeared in many widely-read publications, including the Best American series and W.W. Norton and Houghton Mifflin anthologies, as well as The Atlantic, Glimmer Train, The Iowa Review, Missouri Review, New England Review, Pleaides, Ploughshares, Playboy, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Decanto Magazine in England, and The Canadian Federation of Poetry. Additionally, we have published a number of authors for whom Border Crossing was their first publication, and we are always very excited about discovering new talent.
Every year, after all of the work in each genre has been accepted, one author is chosen from those accepted in each genre for a paid feature. Featured authors will receive prominent placement in the journal, a published interview with the editors, and a $100 honorarium. One artist from Michigan or Ontario is featured each year and receives the same benefits. On an annual basis, our editorial board nominates extraordinary pieces for inclusion in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. We also send fiction to the O. Henry Prize Anthology, where we have been listed alongside other publications with a serious commitment to short fiction. Beginning with volume 5, our first online edition, we nominated work for the storySouth Million Writers Award and the Best of the Net Anthology series. Two stories from vol. 5 made the Million Writers shortlist, one of which was named a finalist, and one of our poems from the same issue was featured in Best of the Net.