Call for Submissions: cahoodaloodaling

Issue #24 – Solitude’s Spectrum
Guest Editor James H. Duncan

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” —Hemingway

Solitude—whether alone on the road in a car, train, motel room, or a forest trail, or even secluded and tucked away in your home, whether it’s a welcomed moment of peacefulness or a lonely state of despair—times of solitude shape us, recharge us, and break us down to our essence. Sometimes we choose to step away from the world. Sometimes the world breaks us and casts us aside. In those moments alone, if we make the choice to continue and create, true artists are born. We cross a border we cannot uncross and heal through our words, finding ourselves—and sometimes finding new selves in the process. As Hemingway said, sometimes we’re strong in those broken places, and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes that jagged broken part affects us forever afterward.

This fall issue we are interested in capturing both the positive, reaffirming pieces about solitude along with those that reveal pain, heartbreak, and introspection. We seek to investigate those breaking point moments, those halting discoveries, those empowered decisions that compel us to walk away from the world and to let the silt settle in the pool of water in our soul. Whether you enjoy locking yourself away or you had to in order to save yourself from hell, we want to hear how these moments lead to creative revelations and re-energized focus, or how they still haunt you to this day.

Submissions due 9/9/17. Issue live 10/31/17. Read guidelines for submissions here.