Since 1999, Bridge has operated as an independent, intersectional hardbound journal of art and public scholarship based in Chicago. Its editorial purview is deliberately wide—poetry, literary fiction, creative nonfiction, visual art, cultural criticism, design, and hybrid work—with separate departments for music, dance, architecture, philosophy, and couture that are pitched directly rather than routed through the general portal. This call concerns literary fiction for Volume 27, Number 1, and it arrives through that general portal. The journal describes its project as an ongoing global conversation about culture and society, and it seeks work that engages the world beyond the self, however subtly. That phrase is the operative curatorial criterion: fiction animated by an outward gaze, whether through social observation, historical pressure, or the quiet insistence of a life situated among others. Bridge states that it welcomes submissions from established as well as emerging writers and artists, positioning the issue as a space where different career stages meet on equal footing—a rare editorial posture, and one that places the burden of distinction on the work itself rather than on the contributor's biography. There is no prize attached to this call, and no publication fee is mentioned; the submission fee is $5.00 USD. The deadline is December 1, 2026. Writers should note that reviews and interviews appear throughout the year at the online magazine, bridge-chicago.org, but this window concerns the print volume alone. The journal's hardbound format and its intersectional mandate suggest an appetite for fiction that can hold its own alongside criticism, visual art, and scholarship—work with intellectual weight and formal composure.