Submissions for the October edition are open!

For our delicious summer edition (available in print or as a pdf here), we were lucky to feature gorgeous, visceral cover art by Gordon Hunt, depicting two swimmers making tracks through a light-filled body of water. The theme for that issue was “The ocean”, chosen to coincide with, and draw awareness to, World Ocean Day. It also marked the start of Spain’s long, hot summer.

By contrast, the next edition of The Madrid Review will be out in October, when the night is encroaching on the day and we are heading into the darkest months of the year. It is both something we experience physically, in real terms – the cold, the dark, the damp leaves drifting down on our heads – but it is also something that feels incorporeal, otherworldly and ripe with metaphor. So, the theme for the October edition is “Into the night”. Interpret it as you will! 

We're also delighted to welcome two very special guest editors, who will be joining us for this edition and reading your poetry and prose submissions.

Guest Prose Editor – Anna Beer

Dr Anna Beer is best-known for her work as a biographer and cultural historian. A Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, she has written major studies of familiar – think Milton, Ralegh and Shakespeare - and not so familiar figures, including her feisty, feminist and accessible accounts of female creatives. Anna’s most influential book is probably Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music (2016) whilst her most recent is Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature (2022), both with Oneworld Publications.

Anna’s crime fiction, Death of an Englishman: an Oxford mystery, appeared in 2025 with the sequel, An Inkling of Death, coming in late in 2026. The swerve to fiction is, however, not as surprising as it first seems. In many ways, Anna’s novels represent Beer business as usual. Both Oxford mysteries are filled with all the things she loves: strong female characters, fierce historical debates, and - of course - long train rides.

Guest Poetry Editor – Matthew Stewart

Matthew Stewart lives in Extremadura and works in the Spanish wine trade. His second full collection, Whatever You Do, Just Don't (HappenStance Press, 2023), was a Poetry Society Book of the Year in the U.K..

The guidelines:

· Word counts: Prose up to 1000 words – Poetry up to 40 lines

· One prose submission per person, four poems per person

· Theme: “Into the night” 

· Submissions close on the 30th August 2026

· Simultaneous submissions are fine

· Submissions are free, but we ask that you subscribe (also for free) to the magazine. If you aren’t already subscribed when we receive your submission you will be automatically subscribed to the magazine. You can subscribe using the link below!

· Send your submission to: office@themadridreview.com, in the subject field add: ‘Submission: Poetry’ or ‘Submission: Prose'

· Please only send your final version, we can't accept revised submissions

· Word documents only

· We are working on funding, but at this time we aren’t able to offer contributor copies 

We look forward to reading you!