Call for Submissions on Big Love, Small Towns: The Four Quarters Magazine

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS : August 2014.
Theme : Big Love, Small Towns
Deadline: 10th July, 2014
Guest Editor for the Issue : Jugal Mody

The Four Quarters Magazine

For the dramatically inclined, love is everything that the Corinthians quote from the Bible says it is. For the cynically inclined, love is measured in patterns of behaviour. For the scientific mind, there might be a solution in the colourful images of the brain as captured by an MRI machine.

Love, not just like the one about how a boy meets girl and that changes the world. But love like the one that keeps our faith in humanity and ourselves alive. (Have you heard of the National Lovers Party?) Love like the one that makes two complete strangers show kindness towards each other. (Have you heard of two strangers on a train bonding over cigarettes sneaked, and taking care of each other’s baggage and lives?) Love like the one that keeps friendships alive, and families together through the good times and bad, through sacrifices and betrayals. (Have you had a loved one, who basically has or had lost his or her shit?) Love like the one that not everyone understands, that not everyone finds it in them to be tolerant towards. (We know far too many of these already.) Love like the one which becomes a punishable offence. Love like the one which is unrequited, unfulfilled and the one which is requited and sated. Love like the one which matures with time and space, or does not and is defined by that very void. (Relationships that begin or end in long distances, or the happy or criminal aftermath of these distances.) Love that is so big that it makes you feel small. Love so blind that it can’t even be called love. Or love that might just be simulated by consumption of inappropriate quantities of chocolate.

How different are all these loves? Or are they the same? Do the language and dynamics of these loves change depending on the geography and culture of the people who indulge in them? As seen, felt, believed in and experienced by someone who belongs to an urban area in India, which is not a metropolitan city. Say a Lucknow, an Indore, a Mangalore, a Pune or a Thrissur — what were once just towns and are now small yet bustling cities.

In this issue of TFQ, we are looking for prose and verse that digs around looking for that love — a poem that chronicles what facts cannot capture, a translation, a review of a book which explores the intricacies of relationships, a transforming short story, or an academic essay on the need for romance.”

- Jugal Mody
Please send in your entries by the end of June, 2014. The deadline for submissions is 10th July, 2014. For submission guidelines, please refer to our submissions page.

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For queries:

fourquartersmagazineATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

For submissions:

submissionsFQM(AT)gmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

The Four Quarters Magazine, A literary quarterly published from India
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