Frequently Asked Questions

1. I would like to buy a print copy of The Suburban Review, how can I do that?

We transitioned to a digital-only quarterly journal at the start of 2017. We are now sold out of our legacy print journals, unfortunately. We will never sell out of our digital journals, and each one is available for purchase in our online shop.

2. I purchased an issue/subscription of The Suburban Review but I haven’t received it. Where is it?

Our online sales process is automated. Any automated communications from our shop will arrive from email address shop@thesuburbanreview.com. If you’ve received an email saying your order was completed, please wait up to 2 hours. Your purchase will be automatically emailed to you. If after 2 hours you still haven’t received anything, please check your spam or junk folders first, and then email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com and quote your order number. We will chase up your order or, if necessary, manually send you a copy of the issue(s) you purchased.

3. I bought an issue/subscription of The Suburban Review a while ago and never opened the email. When I went to read it, I got a notification saying my download links have expired, how do I access my purchase(s)? 

All items in our shop have a 14 day download window. If possible, please download your purchased issue(s) when your order arrives in your inbox. If you weren’t able to download in time and your links have expired, please email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com and quote your order number. We will check your order and reactivate your download links or, if necessary, manually send you a copy of the issue(s) you purchased.

4. I purchased a copy of The Suburban Review in error, who do I talk to about getting a refund?

We understand that mistakes happen. If you want to get a refund on your purchase please email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com, quote your order number, and state your reason for seeking a refund.

5. I submitted a piece during the submissions window for the upcoming issue. It’s been a few weeks now, when will I hear back about the outcome of my piece? 

We open submissions to each issue for about 4 weeks. Once submissions close, we read and review all the submissions as a team. This process can take up to 3 weeks. We recommend you take note of when submissions close and if you haven’t heard anything from us 3 weeks after that date, please email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com. We let every submitter know the outcome of their piece, so if you haven’t received an outcome on your work, please let us know so we can follow up on what happened and get back to you about your submission.

6. How closely do I have to stick to the theme when submitting a piece for consideration?

We are very interested in your take on the theme! Part of the reason why we choose themes for our issues is so that we get to read cool writing about them! At the same time, good writing always stands out. Unfortunately, this question is a bit like asking ‘How long is a piece of string?’ For us, good writing that is on theme is our highest priority when reviewing submissions. If we have to choose between two great pieces, but one of them takes the theme and runs with it in an exciting way… then that’s the piece we’ll be more inclined to publish.

7. I want to print out a copy of the issue of The Suburban Review that I just purchased, but it says I don’t have permission to print?

Our journal is digital, so we can’t monitor how many copies are in distribution at any time. Every sale counts for us, we’re cautious about piracy, so we have a print-lock on our PDF files. Please reach out to us if you have a legitimate reason to want to print out a copy by emailing us at support@thesuburbanreview.com, quote your order number, and state your reason for wanting to print out a copy.

8. How do I access the PDF that I have purchased?

There are a lot of different methods to open and read the PDF files we produce. The PDF can be opened with any standard PDF reader, such as Adobe Acrobat. You can also drag and drop the file into the search of your internet browser (this is guaranteed to work for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox – we tested). If you need help accessing the file, or if you can’t work out how to open it in an eBook or PDF reader, please email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com and state the nature of your problem, we will work with you to solve it!

9. I need to use computer accessibility features like screen-readers in order to read digital publications, are The Suburban Review‘s publications accessible?

Each TSR issue has been designed for comfortable screen-reader use. We recommend using the in-built “Read Out Loud” function in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you use this feature, please feel free to email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com with any feedback or comments. We would love to hear from you and are always trying to improve our journal’s accessibility! We also welcome your feedback about any areas where you think that we could be doing more to make our journal accessible.

10. My question isn’t on this list and I still need help, what do I do?

Well, thank you for reading our FAQs before contacting us! Since we haven’t been able to answer your question here, please get in contact. For general enquiries, please email us at support@thesuburbanreview.com. To get in touch with a specific member of our editorial team, please refer to the email addresses listed on our About page. Our inboxes are not monitored all the time, but we aim to respond to all emails within a week. If your enquiry is urgent, please put the word ‘urgent’ somewhere in your subject line.