Our annual submission period now runs from September 1 through December 31. (Please note that this has moved up slightly from years past.)

Oakwood is the literary and arts annual of South Dakota State University, publishing the work of writers and artists of the Northern Great Plains region.

We define the Northern Great Plains region as those states that adjoin South Dakota (Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming). By “writers and artists of,” we mean people who (a) live in this region now, or (b) had a significant, long-term relationship with this region but now live elsewhere.

We only accept work that has not been published before (with the exception of occasional solicited work, especially from our archives).

We publish a handsome print edition each spring, and contents are subsequently archived through SDSU’s library. Issues from 1975-2023 can be viewed at: https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/oakwood/. 

Submissions to Oakwood must adhere to the following requirements:

• Title and genre (poetry, art, fiction, etc.) of submission must appear in subject line.

• Indicate your relationship with the Northern Great Plains region in your submission email.

• Literary attachments must be in .doc or .docx format.

• Maximum length for literary submissions is 15 pages.

• Visual art attachments must be in .jpeg or .jpg format and at least 1MB in size.

• Submission limits: five poems or artworks, 3000 words for prose.

• If you were published in both the two most recent issues of Oakwood (2022 and 2023), please sit out this submission period and consider us again for next year. If you were in only one of those, feel free to submit during this period. 

Please send all submission materials to sdsu.oakwood@sdstate.edu. This address may also be used for queries.