Call for Submissions: The Notebook by the Grassroots Women Project

THE NOTEBOOK is published biannually by the Grassroots Women Project. We seek work by female or male writers, photographers & digital visual artists with rural or small town roots. We are interested in progressive thinking—past, present or visionary—that explores a spectrum of authentic experiences for women and girls in rural areas and small towns in any of the world’s cultures. Issues of THE NOTEBOOK comprise regular columns and other single-issue features, plus themed sections. We encourage international submissions written in English.

Theme: For the Spring 2014 issue, the themed section focuses on HOME. All genres of writing or digital imagery will be considered as long as home related to the experience of rural or small town women or girls is illuminated in the work, either directly or indirectly. You are free to define, interpret or conceptualize home in any way you see fit.

How to submit your work: Submit by email only to:

TheNotebookATGrassrootsWomenProjectDOTorg (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

We seek original work—no previously published or simultaneously submitted material.

WRITERS: Send your manuscript (11 pt., single-spaced, standard fonts) as a Word .doc or .docx file only. Writing may be of any literary, journalistic or scholarly genre, including non-traditional forms. We charge no reading fee.

We accept submissions of the following lengths:
Prose (fiction or nonfiction) - limit 2,000 words per writer.
Poetry/Lyrics - limit 3 pieces per writer.

PHOTOGRAPHERS & VISUAL ARTISTS: Send digital still images only, .jpg file format, 300 dpi. Images will be reproduced in THE NOTEBOOK in black and white. Submission is limited to 5 images per artist. We charge no submission fee.

How to identify yourself: Include all contact information (name, phone, snail mail, and e-mail address) ON EACH PIECE you submit. Provide a 60-word (max) bio. Include the place-name that defines your (or your subject’s) rural or small town roots, past or present. [Small towns are under 25,000 in population and not located within a larger metropolitan area.]

Timeline: Spring 2014 (Issue #2) submissions close January 31, 2014. Notification in March. Publication in April.

Compensation: Contributors whose work is accepted are paid with one copy of the journal. (We're new. We hope to pay better as we grow.)

Restrictions: No overtly sentimental or superficially confessional material. No explicit porn. No unredemptive stereotypes.

Rights: If you submit work to The Notebook, you are guaranteeing (1) that you own/control all rights to the work submitted and (2) that you agree that your published submission (or excerpts) may also be posted on the evolving website (or a website dedicated specifically to The Notebook, if one is later developed) and may be used in promotion & marketing materials for the project. Writers, photographers and visual artists retain copyright for their work; however, if any piece we accept is later published elsewhere, it should at that time indicate that the work was "previously published by the Grassroots Women Project in The Notebook, a journal about women and girls with rural and small town roots."

Apart from the open submissions period, editors reserve the right to commission and/or to solicit existing work from writers and artists as featured work in The Notebook.

Non-themed elements: Any writer or photographer who has an idea to pitch for a regular feature, a column or a non-themed single-issue piece (i.e.: interview or photo essay) may query us about your idea by submitting a 300-word synopsis of your concept to:

TheNotebookATGrassrootsWomenProjectDOTorg (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

Guest Editor for issue #2 of THE NOTEBOOK is Megan Culhane Galbraith, a writer who lives on a farm in rural New York. Megan's writing appeared in issue #1.

The Grassroots Women Project has been supported in part by generous grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, by women-owned or women-operated enterprises and organizations, and by individuals who have underwritten specific portions of the GWP’s outreach projects.