dislocate, a national literary journal publishing work in/across all genres (and hybrids thereof) by emerging & established writers, is accepting submissions through Decemeber 1. See the guidelines below for both general and contest submissions, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!
DISLOCATE #6 & THE CONTAMINATED ESSAY CONTEST
Reading Period: July 15 – December 1, 2009
What are we looking for? Send us your best work, of course. But send us your best work befitting the spirit of dislocate. Tear us out of our cushiony comfort zones. Ignore “no trespassing” signs; push the limits of form, genre, and subject matter. Dissolve extant boundaries and suggest new ones. Make us question our beliefs about what writing can and cannot do. Give us a little pain with our pleasure. Don’t confuse us. Enthrall us, engage us, surprise us. Be innovative and experimental with your ideas, form, and process. In short, blow our minds.
GUIDELINES FOR REGULAR SUBMISSIONS (no reading fee):
Poetry: Send 3-5 poems (no more than 1 per page).
Fiction: Send up to 6,000 words, double-spaced. Number your pages.
Nonfiction: Send up to 6,000 words, double-spaced. Number your pages.
Everything Else: Have something that doesn’t quite fit into these other categories, but you think it belongs in dislocate? We want to see it! Please, no scholarly articles, research papers, or interviews.
For electronic submissions, (preferred), send your work to the appropriate genre editor:
dislocate(dot)poetry(dot)editor(at)gmail(dot)com
dislocate(dot)fiction(dot)editor(at)gmail(dot)com
dislocate(dot)nonfiction(dot)editor(at)gmail(dot)com
dislocate(dot)everythingelse(at)gmail(dot)com
Replace (dot) with . and (at) with @.
Please email one attached document that includes all your work, in .DOC or .RTF format. Include a cover letter (either in your attachment or in the body of your email) with a short bio and the title(s) of your work(s).
If you’re submitting via snail mail, address your work to:
[Genre] Editor, dislocate
Department of English, University of Minnesota
1 Lind Hall
207 Church Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
CONTEST: THE CONTAMINATED ESSAY
Your essay may be about contamination...To render impure by contact or mixture; to corrupt, defile, pollute, sully, taint, infect.
Contamination may be on a dramatic, mortal scale: smallpox-infected blankets; a nuclear meltdown; an outbreak of hallucinogenic rye fungus. It may be dramatically personal: the way love or a bad relationship infects a person. It may be banal and devastating: the drip drip water torture of a life based on lies, the unwitting and deadly inhalation of asbestos over the course of years.
Contaminate’s root is the Latin word tangere, “to touch,” and contamination usually refers to “touch that makes bad.” But there are ways that elements become stronger as a result of corruption: steel gets stronger when tempered in extreme heat, and chemotherapy purifies the body by nearly destroying it. In literature, stories are retold and recontextualized in an endless and productive series of contaminations. Perhaps, even, the limit toward which we speed is for every sphere of life to be contaminated by every other sphere. The question looms: How do people survive, and even thrive, within this contamination? You need not answer this question directly. But let the question contaminate your work.
Your essay may be contaminated in form...What happens to the essay when we contaminate it with heterogeneous elements? You might add photographs or screenshots from a PowerPoint presentation. You might mix up formal conventions, and make the piece extremely short, or especially lyric. You might transcend generic boundaries and integrate elements of fiction or poetry.
You may contaminate your process...Write under the influence of giardia, or in traffic jams, or in the presence of small, demanding children, and find ways to incorporate those impositions into your text.
Guest Judge: Award-winning poet and essayist Lia Purpura (King Baby, On Looking)
Length: Up to 3,000 words; fewer is fine
Deadline: December 1, 2009
Contest Fee: $15 (includes at 1-year subscription to dislocate)
1st Prize: $400, publication in dislocate #6, and 4 contributor copies
All entries will be considered for publication in dislocate.
Electronic Submissions (preferred): Your subject line should be “The Contaminated Essay.” In the body of the email, include your name, address, phone, email, title of your submission, and word count; a brief bio is optional. Attach your submission in .doc or .rtf format (title it something like "yourname_contaminated.doc”). Your name should NOT appear on the entry itself. Email your entry to:
dislocate(dot)nonfiction(dot)editor(at)gmail(dot)com by December 1, 2009. Replace (dot) with . and (at) with @.
Make your payments online, here, through Paypal; alternately, you may send a check or money order for $15 via snail mail, made out to dislocate with "The Contaminated Essay" in the memo line.
Snail Mail Submissions: Include a cover sheet with your name, address, phone, email, title of your submission, and word count; a brief bio is optional. Your name should NOT appear on the entry itself. Entries must be postmarked by December 1, 2009. Include a check or money order for $15 made out to dislocate with "The Contaminated Essay" in the memo line.
Address your work to:
Contaminated Essay Contest, dislocate magazine
Department of English, University of Minnesota
1 Lind Hall
207 Church Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
For more information, email us:
dislocate(dot)magazine(at)gmail(dot)com
Replace (dot) with . and (at) with @
Or visit our website
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