Taking Submissions: manywor(l)ds September/October 2024 Window

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Submission Window: September 1st – October 31st, 2024
Payment: $10
Theme: Stories of any genre by writers who identify with and as any of the following descriptors: trans, two-spirit, disabled, neurodivergent, Mad, queer, crip, nonbinary, genderqueer, intersex.

We welcome submissions by those who identify with and as any of the following descriptors: trans, two-spirit, disabled, neurodivergent, Mad, queer, crip, nonbinary, genderqueer, intersex. This is a space for the words, works, and worlds of and by those whose bodyminds defy social expectations and invite new ways of thinking and knowing.

We do not need to know the specifics of your identity/diagnosis/experience unless you want us to. We invite closeted and questioning people to share their work, as well as those whose experiences fall outside the confines of the language we used above.

We welcome submissions from creators of all ages. We particularly encourage unpublished/emerging/young creators to submit. If you know an incarcerated/institutionalized creator who would like to submit, email us for information as to where to mail the submission, or clearly indicate in your message that you are submitting on their behalf.

We publish on a quarterly schedule, with issues coming out on:

  • February 15
  • May 15
  • August 15
  • November 15

We are open for all submissions EXCEPT during publication months. That is to say, we are open for submissions January, March, April, June, July, September, October, and December.

Things to note

This is a leftist magazine. We hate capitalism, “america,” cops, prisons, borders, neoliberalism, and all the rest. We don’t tolerate white supremacy, zionism, cisheterosexism, ableism, transmisogyny, xenophobia, fatphobia, intersexism, and anti-sex worker sentiment here. We reserve the right to reject and/or remove content from creators whose work does not align with our values.

We do not tolerate AI-generated or -assisted submissions. Anyone found to be using AI will have their content immediately rejected/removed and will no longer be eligible to submit to manywor(l)ds.

Simultaneous submissions are expected and encouraged. Please let us know if any part of your submission is accepted elsewhere before we can get to it.

Please submit to us only once per reading period, and hold off on submitting if you were published in the last issue.

We are proud to be a paying market. All contributors of unpublished works will receive $10 USD upon publication. Reprints (including pieces previously shared on public social media profiles) are accepted, provided you have the rights, but will not receive payment.

We prefer Paypal for payment; however, Venmo, Interac e-transfer, and Wise are also possible. If we can’t settle on a suitable fee-free alternative (excepting currency conversion fees), the money will be donated to a mutual aid fund or similar cause.

We ask for First North American Serial Rights for unpublished works. Rights revert to you upon publication. Please credit us if your beautiful work is published elsewhere, including in a book!

What to Include

 Submissions are currently CLOSED, except for (multi)media, translations, (multi/inter)lingual work, (inter/re)views, and writers from SWANA communities.
We will be open again for all submissions next month.

Send your submissions to submissions [at] manyworlds [dot] place.

We take submissions of all/no forms and genres, including previously published work.

For all submissions:

  • Do not label your submission by genre.
  • Do not include personal information such as your address or phone number in your submission.
  • Address both editors, either by name or as “editors”, without using gendered signifiers (i.e. avoid using “Ms.”, “Mr.”, etc.).
  • Include a short third-person bio (under 100 words) along with your submission.

We use Gmail for submissions. If your submission exceeds 25MB, please send it as a compressed zip archive or share it via Google Drive.

Text-based submissions should number no more than three <1,000-word pieces, or five total pages. If your spacing is funky (we encourage funky spacing) use your best judgement.

Media submissions are subject to the following guidelines:

  • three images (JPEG/PNG/WebP/SVG/GIF), with a visual description for each image, or
  • one audio recording of five minutes or fewer (MP3/WAV), with a timestamped transcript, or
  • one video of five minutes or fewer (MP4/WebM), preferably transcribed with WebVTT
    • Video transcripts should be at least two files: one for captioning what is said in the video, and one for describing what is happening visually. You may choose to include a third file indicating “chapters” or sections within the video.

We are happy to work with creators to improve their media transcription before publication if it does not sufficiently describe the work.

For submissions that involve multiple forms of media across those boundaries, please use your best judgement. If you think it roughly aligns with our page/media limits and values, please feel free to send it along anyway. We love seeing experimental work in all forms.

For certain genres below, we have additional requirements:

Though this magazine is english language-based, we enthusiastically welcome translations and other forms of (multi/inter)lingual work.

In particular, submissions that incorporate multiple languages (including grammatical and syntactical differences) should do so meaningfully to shape creative works. We are less interested in incidental incorporation of individual words/phrases, but would like to see instead pieces where non-english languages are core to the work’s construction/craft.

Translations should also include:

  • A short cover letter introducing your background as a translator, your relationship with the source language and the translated work, and any literary, cultural, and other context that you think may be helpful.
  • A letter from the rights holder (generally the author or the publisher) confirming that the translator has received permission to translate, and that the work’s English translation rights are available.
  • The original work by the author; this does not count towards the page/media limit.

A huge thank you to Augur Magazine and their submission guidelines, from where we have pulled the first two guidelines around translations.

We are open to both queries (explain what you’re reviewing, and why) and completed submissions regarding reviews and interviews.

Your reviews and interviews may be experimental or “traditional” in form. They may also defy interview/review “genre conventions.” Just be sure we know who and what you’re in conversation with.

Some books we’re interested in seeing reviews for right now include:

  • WILD GEESE by Soula Emmanuel
  • random access memory by nat raum
  • foundwaves by nat raum
  • I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times by Taylor Byas
  • MIASMIST by tommy wyatt blake

Via: manywor(l)ds.

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