Most events are installed on their deadline date, unless there is a long submission window or unless it's a rolling submission.
P=Poetry, N=Nonfiction, F=Fiction
- This event has passed.
P – Litmag Subs are Open for the engine(idling. The theme is: The Urge
… as in the many faces of “the feminine urge” — to cave-dwell or home-make, towards tenderness or violence, giddiness or belligerence, nurturing or devouring, and so on.
We’d like to explore a full spectrum of “the female experience,” and especially showcase her inner world. What makes her tick? What’s behind the mask and under her skin? Which desires and urges are rarely spoken but always just below the surface?
While this sub call does focus on women, we welcome subs from everyone. We’re not here to make it weird or police identity. It’s your art we’re after. If your work is resonant, heartfelt, and challenging, it can find a home here.
If you need a little kick-start, here’s some things we’re thinking about: “feral women,” the beauty privilege/tax, girlhood and sisterhood, frenemies and rivals, Munch’s The Scream (1893), witchy sewing circles, Angela Ball’s “Difficult Daughters,” Kārlis Padegs’ Madonna with the Machine Gun (1932), Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Theresa (1652), Miss Daisy Fay Buchanan meets Candy Darling, Millais’ Ophelia (1851–2), The Legend of Billie Jean (1985), PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love (1995), Fatal Attraction (1987), the daily schedule of a 1950’s housewife, Guides to Female Etiquette and Dress, shoulder pads and power suits and traveling pants, Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele (1996), Jane Austen and the girls of gothic fiction, the Wilson Sisters via The Virgin Suicides (1999), the trappings and joys of motherhood, Sharp Objects (2018), Victorian hysteria, the Dancing Plague of 1518, Snapped (2004-), Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), Mary Toft in 1726, Angela’s dance to Bauhaus’ Stigmata Martyr in 1988’s Night of the Demons [Video clip has a strobe effect], Walter Gramatté’s Tired Woman (1923), the art of Mary Cassatt and Artemisia Gentileschi and Ramon Casas, Otto Dix’s The Nun (1914) …
Feel free to get dark, get complicated, and say the quiet things aloud.
We are looking forward to reviewing your work!
Be sure to include your address in your submission so that we can send you free swag as a thanks. We’ll send anywhere. For Issue 7 we are sending out art postcards that double as bookmarks.
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If you are able to do so, we ask that you please report your submissions on Duotrope and / or Chill Subs. We are listed with both sites.
To Submit
To submit, please email 1 – 4 poems to the editor at engineidling@gmail.com.
You may send poems as a .docx, .pdf, or copy / paste them into the body of the email.
Format
For written works, please use a standard font. We can accommodate some specialized formatting like white space using tabs and indents. However, shape poems or poems with very specific spatial needs usually don’t work out.
If your poem is more than a single page, please indicate whether or not there is a stanza break at the page break(s).