Beginning September 2019, we have moved to a weekly publication schedule. In addition, we have chosen to suggest a number of possible themes to help guide the following month’s submissions. Each month we aim to publish a blend of themed and unthemed work. We include below a description of our general tastes, the current themes, and themes from prior months.
General Tastes
We’ve found that we have a fairly broad range of things we like to publish. We generally seek a mix of playful and serious work, a blend of whimsy and reality. New writers and unfamiliar tales excite us. We want your outcast stories and forgotten voices. We want herd mothers and rogues, children of diaspora and indigenous artists. Bring us the memories you cannot forget and the emotions that feel elephantine in your chest. We would like to offer a safe space to discuss your trauma, your ongoing struggles, your difference, and your similarity. And we want to offer hope that whatever you’re going through, whatever plagues the world, tomorrow may dawn better.
Current Themes
Themes for January 2020 (to be considered for one week only from December 22-29, 2019) include: rebirth, new year, resolve, resolution, foretell, reset, beginnings, cyclical renewal. Fireworks illuminate the dark, beauty rests beneath the frost, and every day and year we get a chance to start over. Light our way forward and greet a new decade with us. Good things begin in the company of friends and loved ones.
Prior Themes
December 2019 themes: Winter, snowfall, crackling fires, knit, getting and giving gifts, forecast, sacred rituals, commercial dominance, family, close quarters. As the world outside becomes frightful, bring us inside and show us how you react. Make a fire filled with family or childhood traditions, and let it warm or burn us. Focus on a single, crystalline moment as it tumbles through the air. Or just give us the gift of your words, however they come out.
November 2019 themes: resist, submit, Thanksgiving, indigenous rights, indigenous voices, elect, the waning of things, the last gasps of fall glory. Tell us what you’re thankful for, then look dark secrets in the eye. Expose injustices, resist unlawful power, and elect a new future. Or just deliver us a bit of you, clean and bare, unafraid of light.
October 2019 themes: Halloween, Samhain, pretend, reflect, flit, autumn, leaves, regret, descend, loss, transformation, and splendid color. Bring things scary, spiritual, or thoughtful. Dress up in something new. Put on your new skin or fur and take us howling (or trumpeting) through town. Or ignore these ideas altogether and just show us beautiful you.