Connective Tissue

Actively Seeking Submissions for Publication:

Deadline: January 11, 2026 by 11:59 PM CST

Submit your original poems, prose, art or photography to be considered for publication at: Connective Tissue Submission Google Form

This theme pays homage to the profound transformation that defines our training in the health professions. We enter as students—in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or research—and are fundamentally reshaped by our experiences. This journey is more than the acquisition of knowledge; it is a metamorphosis of our identity, perspective, and responsibility. It is the process of becoming a healer.

For this edition, we invite you to explore these moments of transformation: the profound, the subtle, the challenging, and the triumphant. What does it mean to be remade by our training? What is gained, and what is left behind?

We welcome and encourage all submissions, regardless if they are directly related to the theme.

Submission Categories

• Literature
  • prose, poetry, essays, interviews, memoirs, narratives, short stories
• 55-Word Story
  • must be exactly 55 words, may be fiction or non-fiction
• Visual Art
  • painting, illustration, sculpture, mixed media
• Photography

Submission Guidelines

• Please submit each piece separately with one form per piece (e.g. if you’d like to submit a photograph and an essay, submit this form twice)
• Each submission must be an originalproduct of your own creativity and imagination*
• We encourage submitting pieces related to the theme Metamorphosis, but this is not a prerequisite
• Written work must be fewer than 2,000 words, and exactly 55 words for the 55-Word Story category
• Written work must be submitted as a Word document, and visual art must be submitted as a .jpg
• This year, we are welcoming music submissions for our journal! Composers can submit their recordings as .mp3 or .mp4 files, and/or may submit visual sheet music compositions as .pdf, if applicable.
• Multiple submissions are welcome, with up to three submissions per person per category

*With the launch of freely accessible AI systems, we recognize that new questions have arisen regarding original content and AI-generated content. This year, the editors-in chief do not want to restrict the use of AI in making art. However, we request that you disclose how you used AI in creating your submission if AI was involved at the very bottom of the form (electronic signature line).

Past Issue Archives

About the Journal

Since 2008, Connective Tissue has played an important role in cultivating arts and humanities at the UT Health San Antonio. Complimentary copies of the current issue are available in the Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics, located on the 4th floor of the Briscoe Library, room 4.042.

Special thanks to the Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics and the many donors who make this student-led publication possible.