Permafrost Magazine, based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has long been a venue for writing that engages with the extremes of landscape and form. The journal's commitment to innovative nonfiction is evident in its call for essays that wrestle with language and experiment with structure, seeking work that resists easy categorization. This is not a venue for conventional memoir or reportage; rather, it is a space for writing that interrogates the possibilities of the essay as a form. The editors express a particular affinity for place-based writing, flash and micro memoirs, prose poems, hermit crab essays, and any work that pushes the limits of the fourth genre. Submissions may consist of one piece of up to 8,000 words or up to three flash or micro pieces of roughly 1,000 words each. Excerpts from book-length works are welcome, provided they stand alone. Accepted work will be considered for either the fall online issue or the spring print issue, and writers are invited to indicate a preferred publication medium. A reading fee of $5.00 (USD) applies. This fee supports the journal's operations and is a standard practice for many literary magazines. The deadline for submissions is May 2, 2027. Writers should note that the journal seeks work that is as carefully crafted on the sentence level as it is ambitious in its conceptual reach.