Submit Your Darlings

In the summer, and with school out, and my writing schedule eaten up - I love turning to shorter work, stories, poems, hybrid tales that are neither one or the other. There are plenty of places to send work at the moment. I posted previously about submitting to magazines  (and must update the list of Irish magazines - they've tripled in the past few years, a really good sign.) 

Words Ireland have a good list of magazines HERE. In the meantime, Mslexia are currently inviting submissions from women writers for their showcase section. They want stories of up to 2,200 words, poems of up to 40 lines, and short scripts of up to 1,000 words. 

The themes are...

Issue 76: YESTERYEAR
It’s often said that the past is another country. For this theme we invite you to take your imagination on a journey to history or prehistory and tell us about the poignant, tragic or amazing people and events you discovered there.  CLOSING DATE: 4 September 2017

Issue 77: BEWITCHED
For this theme we’re look for stories and poems with a mythical, mystical or paranormal aspect to them. So channel your inner Rowling and Pullman and open the door to daemons, dungeons and dragons.  CLOSING DATE: 4 December 2017

Submitting your work

Entries are judged anonymously, so please put your name on a separate cover sheet and omit your name from your poem or story. To send us your submissions online, fill in the form below and upload your submission document .

To send your entries by post, write to
Mslexia Publications
PO Box 656
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE99 1PZ.

For more info click HERE

Abridged - In Blue

Yves Klein

Abridged 0 – 34: In Blue Submission Call

Abridged, the poetry/art magazine is looking for submissions for its In Blue issue. 

A maximum of 3 poems may be submitted of any length. (I love that its any length, the usual 40 line limit can be a pain for the long winded amongst us.)

Art can be up to A4 size and can be in any media. It should be at least 300 dpi. 

Submissions can (preferably) be emailed to abridged@ymail.com 

or posted to: Abridged c/o The Verbal Arts Centre, Stable Lane and Mall Wall, Bishop Street Within, Derry BT48 6PU. Closing date for submission is 30th September 2013.

'This issue encourages the consideration of the vital connotations of the concept of ‘blue’ to the human condition and the individual’s contemplation of place, purpose, self and essence. The strong association of the colour blue with the natural (the sea and sky), the broken (melancholy) and the forbidden (pornography) have led to said colour concurrently evoking ideas of apparent wholesomeness, failure and seedy delinquency. Blue runs underneath us and domes above us; it is what bore us and what we aspire through imagination to return to: another dimension, another means of perceiving, breathing, moving, experiencing… It is the colour of the most subtle moods of pain, not burning with the disarming immediacy of horror or despair but throbbing in mellow multiplicity and tonal diversity, slowly moving through the depths of reflection. Blue dances with dappled light, altering perception and renewing reflection. In creative discourses we take it from outside us and hold it as our own, making our subtle moods of humanity material by weaving them through its soft, swelling diversity. Blue was our home, to blue we long to return. We wish to wallow in its mellow discontent hoping for a return to the good old days. Days that never did or could have existed: days that define us.

You can find out more HERE