How to get a short piece published in the New York Times

The New York Times has no open call for short stories that we could find. The fiction we could trace appeared in its magazine, from established writers, such as the Decameron Project of 2020. What the Times takes from outside writers is short and true, or an argument: Modern Love essays, Tiny Love Stories, Metropolitan Diary entries, guest opinion essays and letters to the editor.

EdCitation publishes this guide, and first, a limit: on 23 September 2026 the tools used to research it could not open nytimes.com, so the Times's help and submission pages there went unread. Every rule below comes from a Times document we could open elsewhere (its guest essay form, a contest's official rules, books by its editors) or from a named source, and what we could not confirm is marked. Check the Times's own page before you send.

One thing holds for every route: a piece that leans on facts has to get them right. EdCitation's free Verify references checks each source you cite against the publisher's record, and Find sources finds the study behind a claim.

Does the New York Times publish short stories from outside writers?

Not through any route we could find. None of the Times documents we read invites fiction. The two cases of fiction we could trace both ran in its magazine, by writers already well known.

The fiction the Times has run

• The Decameron Project, 2020. In March 2020 the editors of The New York Times Magazine set out to gather stories written as the pandemic spread. The book's publisher calls the 29 stories "originally commissioned" by the magazine (The New York Times, 2020), and a study of the project in the journal Thesis Eleven says the same (Downes & Römhild, 2022). The book, with Margaret Atwood and Tommy Orange among its writers, came out on 10 November 2020.
• A serial novel, before 2007. Michael Connelly's own site says the 2007 Harry Bosch novel The Overlook was first serialised in the Times's Sunday magazine, and that the book adds material the magazine did not print (Connelly, n.d.).

We found no sign that either was open to submissions. Fiction belongs with the magazines further down.

Why a story cannot be dressed as fact

The Times's reader columns print true stories, and two books drawn from them say so in their titles: Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption (Jones, 2019) and Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less (Jones & Lee, 2020).

Metropolitan Diary rests on its contributors' honesty. In 2007 NPR's Day to Day recounted a radio show's successful attempt to plant a fake item in the Diary; its editor, Michael Pollock, contacted the university of the student who sent it, and a dean questioned the student (NPR, 2007). A short story recast as memoir is not a clever submission but a false statement to an editor.

What does the Times take from outside writers?

Five regular routes and, in 2022, a contest, each confirmed as far as we could on 23 September 2026.

Before you send, paste the page's rules into EdCitation's free Check your paper: it reads instructions into a checklist, each rule beside its sentence.

How do you submit a guest opinion essay to the Times?

Through the Times's online form, hosted on Airtable, which we read on 23 September 2026 (The New York Times, n.d.). It defines a guest essay as "an argument, based in fact", drawn from expertise or experience in the writer's own voice, and notes that these essays were formerly called Op-Eds.

What the form asks for

1. The author's name, and every title or affiliation, paid and unpaid.
2. A contact email, and optionally a phone number.
3. One subject from a list, such as politics, culture or technology.
4. A short outline of the idea or the whole draft, pasted in; links to drafts hosted elsewhere are not considered.
5. Why the author is an authority on the subject or, for a personal essay, the circumstances behind it; a professional link is optional.
6. A box confirming that the work is original, exclusive to the Times, and has not appeared anywhere, in print or online, in any form.

Exclusivity, waiting and silence

That last box rules out a draft you have already posted on a blog or a newsletter. The form warns that an editor may need at least a day to review a submission, asks for no duplicates, and asks writers not to chase individual editors by email. It gives no word limit and no reply time; it links to fuller guidance on the Times's help centre, which we could not open.

The OpEd Project's list of outlets' rules, dated September 2026, quotes the Times: pieces "typically run from 400-1200 words", any length is considered, and a writer who hears nothing in three business days should assume the piece will not be used (The OpEd Project, 2026). Its entry still speaks of the "op-ed page", a name the Times's form puts in the past tense, so treat the list as a guide and the form as the rule.

How do you send a letter to the editor of the Times?

By email, according to The OpEd Project's list; the Times's own letters page could not be opened. The entry, in the Times's voice, asks that a letter:

• be exclusive to the Times, and not an open letter or a third-party letter;
• run preferably to 150 to 175 words;
• refer to an article published in the last seven days;
• give the writer's address and phone number, with no attachments.

Unpublished letters get only an automated reply, chosen writers hear within a week, and letters may be edited and shortened. The address it gives for the US edition is letters@nytimes.com. Quote the article you answer exactly; paraphrase, quote or summarise sets out when each is right.

How do Modern Love, Tiny Love Stories and Metropolitan Diary work?

None of the three submission pages at the Times could be opened on 23 September 2026; here is what could be documented.

Modern Love

Daniel Jones has edited Modern Love since it began in 2004 (Jones & Lee, 2020). In a 2021 interview he said that for roughly its first twelve years the column received "a hundred a week or so"; since the podcast and the television series, he said, it gets too many to answer, by his own uncertain estimate 10,000 to 11,000 a year (Reid, 2021). He and Miya Lee read them when they have time, looking for a story that is smart, emotional and heartfelt. Its word limit, address and any reading periods could not be confirmed at the Times, so we give none.

The 2022 Modern Love College Essay Contest

The Times's official rules for its 2022 contest could be read in a copy a university posted (The New York Times Company, 2022). The contest was open to US undergraduates aged 18 or over from 18 February to 27 March 2022, for one emailed essay of no more than 1,700 words on the current state of love and relationships. Jones and Lee were expected to judge, and the winner received $1,000 and publication on nytimes.com.

One clause matters in any contest: every entrant, winner or not, granted the Times a non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully paid licence to use the essay in any medium. Read the rights clause before you send.

Tiny Love Stories

The book of the column, by Jones and Lee, collects 175 true stories, each told "in no more than one hundred words"; the publisher's page adds that Miya Lee, the Modern Love projects editor, selects and edits them (Jones & Lee, 2020). The current submission form and its reply times could not be confirmed.

Metropolitan Diary

The Diary takes submissions through the Times's site, according to one contributor. Lia Buffa De Feo (2024) sent a piece on 5 March 2024, received an email a week later asking for confirmation that it was original, true and unpublished, and saw it published on 21 April, cut from 384 words to 280. That is one writer's experience, not a rule. The Times's own page on submitting to the Diary could not be opened.

Where can you send a short story instead?

To literary magazines, each with its rules on its own submission page. Three, read on 23 September 2026:

One Story receives close to 5,000 submissions a year, takes one story per writer per submission period, and gives 8 June 2026 as the opening of its next submission period, which closes when a cap is reached; its sister magazine, One Teen Story, publishes only writers aged 13 to 19 (One Story, n.d.). The New Yorker closed fiction while moving to Submittable (The New Yorker, n.d.). Clarkesworld Magazine (n.d.) forbids sending a rejected story again.

What the magazines say about AI

All three rule on it. One Story refuses work made with AI's help at any stage, ideas, drafts and revision included. Clarkesworld will not consider work written, developed or assisted by AI tools. The New Yorker's poetry guidelines refuse AI-generated work unless a writer uses it deliberately as a formal device, and ask for any use to be disclosed. The Times's guest essay form does not mention AI; it asks for original work.

How do you get the facts right before an editor reads your piece?

Check each fact against its source before you send: a personal essay that cites a study makes a claim anyone can check.

1. Read the submission page into a checklist. Paste its rules into EdCitation's free Check your paper; each rule appears beside the sentence it came from. It is built for assignments, and reads a magazine's page the same way: given One Story's guidelines on 23 September 2026, it set the word count at 3,000 to 8,000 words beside the sentence it came from. Read every rule against its sentence.
2. Find the source behind each claim. Put the claim into Find sources, which searches about 300 million published works and filters by kind of source, years and open access. Prefer the study to a report about it.
3. Build the reference. Cite a source builds it from a DOI, a title, an ISBN or a web address, in six styles from APA 7 to Vancouver, and screens the source for retraction. Keep the list with your draft, even if the published piece will carry links.
4. Confirm that every source exists. Paste the list into Verify references; how to check a reference is real covers what to do with one marked "check this" or not found.
5. Quote briefly and exactly. Name the source in the sentence, and check the words against the original.
6. Send once, to one place, and wait as the page says. An exclusive submission is exclusive: while the Times is considering a guest essay, do not offer it to another paper.

How can EdCitation help with a piece for the Times?

By checking the sources a piece rests on, the one part of a submission with a right answer. EdCitation's Verify references is the best tool for that job, because it never writes a reference: it looks each one up in the publisher's record, which no chatbot can promise to do. Free with no account, it marks each entry verified, "check this" or not found, flags retracted papers, and never shows a reference it could not check as not found. On 23 September 2026 we ran three of this guide's own sources through it, and all three came back verified: the Downes and Römhild article by its DOI, the two books against a library catalogue record.

The same day, Cite a source built the APA 7 entry for that article from Crossref's record, volume, issue and pages included, with no retraction notice. A free account keeps the list. Pro, at $8 a month, and Max, at $24, add paid checks, set out on Pricing; none is needed to send a piece to an editor.

EdCitation never writes any part of a piece, and nothing in this guide promises that an editor will accept yours, print it or pay for it.

Quick questions

Does the New York Times accept short stories?

Not through any route we could find. The fiction we could trace ran in its magazine, such as the Decameron Project's 29 stories, commissioned in 2020.

How long is a Tiny Love Story?

No more than 100 words, as the column's book by its editors puts it. The current form could not be read for this guide, so check it before you send.

Can I send my guest essay to other papers at the same time?

No. The Times's form asks you to confirm that the essay is exclusive to the Times and has not appeared anywhere else, in print or online.

How long does the Times take to reply to a guest essay?

Its form says an editor may need at least a day to review a submission. The OpEd Project reports the Times's advice to assume a piece will not be used if you hear nothing in three business days.

Which EdCitation tool checks the sources in my essay?

EdCitation's free Verify references checks each source against the publisher's record, and Cite a source builds the entries, both with no account.

References

• Buffa De Feo, L. (2024, April 22). Demystifying the Metropolitan Diary submission process. Fly Bravely. https://flybravely.substack.com/p/demystifying-the-metropolitan-diary
• Clarkesworld Magazine. (n.d.). Submission guidelines. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/submissions/
• Connelly, M. (n.d.). The overlook (2007). Michael Connelly. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.michaelconnelly.com/writing/theoverlook/
• Downes, S., & Römhild, J. (2022). Pandemic fiction as therapeutic play: The New York Times Magazine’s The Decameron Project (2020). Thesis Eleven, 169(1), 45–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/07255136211069417
• Jones, D. (Ed.). (2019). Modern love, revised and updated: True stories of love, loss, and redemption. Crown. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623036/modern-love-revised-and-updated-by-edited-by-daniel-jones-with-contributions-by-andrew-rannells-ayelet-waldman-amy-krouse-rosenthal-veronica-chambers-and-more/
• Jones, D., & Lee, M. (2020). Tiny love stories: True tales of love in 100 words or less. Artisan. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/daniel-jones/tiny-love-stories/9781579659912/
• The New Yorker. (n.d.). The New Yorker submission manager. Submittable. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://newyorker.submittable.com/submit
• The New York Times. (n.d.). Submit a guest opinion essay [Online form]. Airtable. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://airtable.com/appWPq1DBHKREmMme/shrWEYhC2wWUOdCCN
• The New York Times. (2020). The Decameron Project: 29 new stories from the pandemic. Scribner. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Decameron-Project/The-New-York-Times/9781982170790
• The New York Times Company. (2022). The New York Times Modern Love College Essay Contest: Official rules [PDF]. Alabama A&M University. https://www.aamu.edu/academics/academic-support-retention/writing-center/news/_documents/ny-times-modern-love-essay-contest.pdf
• NPR. (2007, March 7). Letters: Joke on the "Metropolitan Diary" [Transcript]. Day to Day. https://www.npr.org/2007/03/07/7755027/letters-joke-on-the-metropolitan-diary
• One Story. (n.d.). Submission guidelines. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://one-story.com/write/submit-a-story/
• The OpEd Project. (2026). Submission information. Retrieved September 23, 2026, from https://www.theopedproject.org/submissions
• Reid, W. (2021, February 10). Alumnus behind "Modern Love" sees a trend toward kindness during pandemic. UVA Today. https://news.virginia.edu/content/alumnus-behind-modern-love-sees-trend-toward-kindness-during-pandemic