Issue 2 Theme: Branches
“the poems are branches worked through the mouth & hands.
a nest, a nest! a limbwork i can lie down in,
get up from”
– “ars poetica,” by Jasmine Reid
For our second issue, 3 Sisters invites work in conversation with the ideas of branches, branching, and brachial systems. This includes but is not limited to work involving: trees, olive branches (reconciliations, peace offerings), fruit (pawpaw and others), roots, ramus, trunks, leaves, alternate timelines, futures, choice, bifurcation, trifurcation, tributaries, distributaries, contingencies, permutations, confluence, estuary, forking paths, sistering (a process in architecture, of adding additional beams to strengthen an existing structure), scaffolding, limbs/appendages, innervation, veins, bodily systems, plexus, breath, fractures, fractals, nudibranchs, seeds, germination, propagation, mutation, symbiosis, proliferation, decussation, divergence, inheritance, descendants, antecedents, and genealogy.
“O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?”
–“This Compost” by Walt Whitman
Special Folio: Dirt
Additionally, we’re interested in decomposition, the breaking down of materials to make way for the possibility of something new. Dirt as a fertile ground for creation and as a resting place of that which has expired. Not just a site of transformation, but the process itself is of interest: to linger in that in-between state: filth, dejection, scum.
The work we hope to be represented in this special folio on dirt is work that is evolving/devolving, adaptive, languid, centered on the grime that comes with growth and decay.
We encourage innovation, playfulness, entendre, and deviation from the literal.
“Again with the digging, again with the digging up.
Once more with the shovels.
Once more, the shovels full of dirt.
The vault lid. The prying. The damp boards.”
– “Ballad” by Diane Seuss
General Submission Guidelines
We accept work from all genres, including but not limited to fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art, mixed media, essay, video pieces, computational work, audio offerings, objects, and more. We are especially interested in hybrid works, work that falls in between genres, and pieces that are not easily categorized. We delight in art that is structurally unconventional, fragmentary, elliptical, or otherwise weird and surprising. As an online publication we are excited to showcase works that utilize the digital format in unique ways.
Our Open Submission Period is currently open September 1, 2026 – October 15, 2026. Click here to submit via our free, old school Submission Manager.
Simultaneous submissions are expected; please do alert us immediately when your work is accepted elsewhere by withdrawing it manually in our submissions manager.
We do not consider previously published work.
All rights revert to the authors/artists after publication, and the works can then be reprinted (though we ask that we get an acknowledgment as its place of initial publication).
3 Sisters is currently able to offer a modest honorarium for accepted work. The amount per contributor or piece is dependent on our overall number of contributors for a given issue, and the budget allocated to us by the University of Pittsburgh. These numbers are subject to change per issue.
At this time, we are unable to offer any feedback on individual submissions.
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