Call for Submissions: Punk Monk Magazine

Punk Monk Magazine

Submissions open!

Please read guidelines thoroughly.

You can now sign up for free editorial feedback and/or priority response rates via our Patreon.

We want writing from the gut: your loves, your losses.

Paint splatters. Mosh pits.

Healing. Hope. Hurts.

Mistakes. Misgivings. Misfits.

We want honest, gripping work exploring the breadth and depth of humanity. Mere shock value has no place here. #OwnVoices strongly preferred.

We like stories/poems with an "untucked shirt." (If you get the reference, this is definitely your scene!)

We are excited to lift up femme/non-binary voices, though all (within the realms of moral sanity) are welcome. We're especially interested in a feminine perspective w/ edge. It's rare to see the two combined, and rarer to find spaces curating those fab punk femme gems.

Think:
Kathy Acker
Elizabeth Smart
d'bi Young
Assata Shakur
Zadie Smith
Helen Oyeyemi
Sylvia Plath (her memoir, not her poetry)
Elise Cowen
Sophie B Watson
Ntozake Shange
Leslie Feinberg
Saul Williams
Joy Harjo
Tommy Orange
Zora Neale Hurston
Diane di Prima
Sherman Alexie
Maggie Nelson
+ a Stoic/Spiritualist sensibility.

(Haven't read any of the above? Please do so before submitting.)

(NO: fancy shit, scatology, hate speech. <- Including misogyny; misandry is equally uncool.)

Punk Poetry:

• We prefer if you submit 1 poem at a time, but up to 4 will be considered.

• Shorter poems are more likely to be considered for print editions.

• Accepted genres: General, Contemporary, Experimental. Non-rhyming/free-verse preferred.

• I iterate: no fancy shit. We do not dig Gothic or Literary poems. No fancy formatting. No five dollar words. We want it to feel real.

Check out Em Ramser's amazing poem to see what we're looking for.

Punk Prose:

• Flash fiction only. Micro-fiction welcome. (Only submit longer-length fiction upon request from our EIC.)

• We want tight, terse, tender.

• Accepted genres: General, Contemporary, Urban, Literary, Experimental, Hybrid.

• (No Genre fiction. Ie, no Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy. This means no robots, ghosts, monsters, or mutilations.)

• We want it to feel real.

• Excerpts welcome, incl from unpublished or self-published work.

• I iterate: #OwnVoices strongly preferred.

Jenna Best's flash fiction is a great example of what we want.

Fierce Features:

• Seeking essays, reviews, interviews, etc.

• Special interest in feminism, sex work, BLM/ALM/ILM, LGTBQ+, mental health. (For these topics, we maintain a firm #OwnVoices policy.)

• Excerpts welcome, incl from unpublished or self-published work. Send a completed work up to 5K. (Flash preferred.)

Read Mekdela's piece on fatphobia for inspiration.

Audacious Art:

• Open to all art forms. If it explores punk philosophy, healing, mindfulness, fierce femininity, or anything wonderful and weird, we want to see it!

• Open to mainstream art as long as it's meaningful/beautiful.

• Black n white productions more likely to be included in print editions.

Get a gander of Laura Brant's Come Get Some! and Seriously? by Kay Hogan for reference.

Also:
Our Sunflower Series in solidarity for the Ukraine will remain open until the invasion ends. Send us any interpretation of a sunflower, from mainstream to experimental.

The Music Margins:

• We want your music! Send a Bandcamp song link or YT/Vimeo link + a small blurb featuring 1-3 quotable factoids about your band + a photo.

See this feature on LastMinuteHero for an idea of what we need.

The Om Zone:

• Send your meditation videos/tracks from your YT/Vimeo channel!

Stitches:

• Comedy is an amazing art form! Send an embeddable clip of your stand-up (ideally 5 min or less) w/ a small blurb featuring 1-3 quotable factoids about your work. (I iterate: no hate speech.)

ALL SUBMISSIONS:

PASTE submission in the BODY of your email to:

 punkmonkmagazine(at)gmail(dot)com (Change (at) to @ and (dot) to . )

(For art, attach as a PNG or JPG file.)

(If your words aren't pasted into the body of the email, your submission will be rejected, as it indicates you did not clearly read our guidelines.)

Please include your Twitter profile link so we can tag you, and remember to Follow us!

(If you don't include a Twitter handle, we will assume you do not have one, and will not tag you in the publication. Please note Twitter is our sole outlet for promoting your work.)

You can sign up for free editorial feedback and/or priority response rates on Patreon.

• Reprints/simultaneous subs welcome.

• No multiple submissions (ie wait to hear back from us on one submission before sending another, including in multiple categories.)

• (If you send in multiple submissions, your submissions will be rejected, as it indicates you did not clearly read the guidelines.)

We reserve the right to make edits to any work (incl previously published), and first-time publication/serialization rights. You retain all other rights to your work (as it should be.)

We're not picky about cover letters. Please stick to gender-neutral greetings.