Al Dente is accepting submissions for our second issue, “Our Roots,” until Friday October 24th, 2025. If Submittable indicates our submission window is closed before that time, the submissions cap has been reached.
We are looking for creative expressions that establish the relationship between food and personal growth. This can be done via nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, and visual art/photography. See additional categories for specific formatting guidelines.
All work published in our second issue will be accessible through a navigable “Tree of Contents.” When submitting your work, you’ll be asked to identify the location on our tree that most appropriately corresponds with your writing or art. For example, a poem about childhood may be placed at the roots of the tree, or a flash piece about the struggles of aging may be found amidst the leaves. Interpret these locations as you see fit.
We ask for submissions of original work, therefore please refrain from the use of AI.
Along with your work, provide a 2-3 sentence contributor bio. Be sure to include your social media handles for promotional purposes as well.
Unfortunately, at this time we cannot provide compensation to contributors.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted, please inform us via Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere. We assume First North American serial rights of all work published with Al Dente, and aim to keep contributors’ work available for the lifetime of our journal. Please credit Al Dente, should work be republished elsewhere at a later date.
Poetry
Calling all poetic lovers of cuisine! Evoke the nostalgia of chicken noodle soup on a sick cold day in your childhood, the joy of smelling what’s simmering in a crock pot on the kitchen counter. We want to feel the soil of your story and the dishes that are dug into memory. Free verse or rhyme, Haiku or sonnet — feed us your thoughts! Submit up to 3 poems, no more than 5 pages total. Each poem should be submitted as a separate Word document. Use 12 pt Times New Roman or similar font, please.
Visual Art
Artists, photographers, and all food-obsessed creators, this one’s for you! Let’s celebrate the meals, snacks, and ingredients that ground us, shape us, and nourish our stories. Whether it’s grandma’s soup, the corner store candy you grew up on, or a dish that anchors you today, we’d love to see it in your art. Send us up to 5 images in PNG or JPEG format (10 MB max). Show us the flavors and memories that keep you rooted. We can’t wait to feast our eyes on your creations!
Nonfiction
Do you have a burning drive to interrogate the places in which food lives? Have an essay somewhere inside you all about the finer points of the allure of gas station tacos? Have a kitchen confidential you want to share straight from the line? Our 2025 Non-Fiction submissions are open to all essays and creative non-fiction that explores, investigates, and profiles food, cooking, eating, and the places we share. We want to hear your food narratives, your recipe origin stories, your profiles of an eatery, your tales from the service industry both front and back-of-house. Take us with you on a journey from farm, to plate, to fork—or anywhere in between. We welcome non-fiction submissions of 2,000 words or fewer that sink their teeth in and explore. Please identify the word count at the top of your piece, and format with 12 point Times New Roman or similar font.
Flash Fiction
Serve up your finest appetizers, snacks, and hors d’oeuvres. Open up a window, however small, into your kitchen, your dinner table, your favorite recipes. For our 2025 Flash submissions, we ask for short pieces that invite us in, whet our appetite, and leave us wanting more, whether in the form of a fictional mise en place, a finely garnished vignette of a scene, a simple, home-cooked memory of a meal, or any other tantalizing morsel that connects food to the mind and soul. The first meal shared with a lifelong friend? The most recent attempt at authentic Creole gumbo? A surreal conversation over café brunch that could have happened sometime somewhere? Please, give us a seat at the table if only for a moment. Submissions of 500 words or fewer are welcome, from the raw and filling to the sweet and savory. Please identify the word count at the top of your piece, and format with 12 point Times New Roman or similar font.