swamp pink

ABOUT

swamp pink is the literary journal of the College of Charleston, founded in 1960 in Kansas as Crazyhorse by poet Gino Sky and a loose circle of Beat-adjacent writers. The magazine migrated through several university homes over the following decades—including stints at the University of Kansas, Wichita State, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock—before settling at the College of Charleston, where it built a reputation for serious, non-doctrinaire poetry and fiction under editors including Bret Lott and Anthony Varallo. In 2022 the journal changed its name to swamp pink, a decision announced by the editorial staff to move away from the Crazy Horse association and toward a name drawn from Helonias bullata, an endangered wildflower native to Southeastern wetlands; the mission, format, and staff continuity were preserved through the rebrand.

swamp pink publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction twice yearly and pays contributors for accepted work, a practice it has maintained across the name change. Submissions are handled through Submittable during defined reading periods (the journal closes to general submissions outside its announced windows), and, like most journals of its size, it runs periodic contests with entry fees that fund prizes and cover reading costs—poets should check the current call for exact fee amounts, word/line limits, and simultaneous-submission policy before sending work, since these details shift year to year under new editorial staff.