Events for September 30, 2024

We want to know what the bassoonist is doing instead of showing up to perform.

Stories can be serious or humorous, or both. We can't wait to read all the heartwarming, inspirational, and hysterical stories you have about your cats.

Send us your writing that interrogates obfuscation, from without, and within.

The Fame issue will explore all the fabulous, fascinating, and sometimes Faustian facets of rising in reputation and renown.

Please use your boundless, limitless, imagination and give us a beautiful or startling or eerie prose poem, lyric essay, piece of creative nonfiction, or short work of fiction (any genre) having to do with the heaven(s) / sky.

We're open to reading the slyly speculative, the strange, the uncanny, and the weird.

Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. WestWord requests one-time, non-exclusive rights to publish your work.

At Audience Askew, we like the strange, quirky, and unique—aiming to find thought-provoking stories, engaging poetry, and distinctive artwork that doesn’t quite fit in anywhere else.

Erosion can be the process of breaking down, of gradual destruction. It is usually silent, constant, and unavoidable. Relationships can erode, carrying away trust and belonging, just as stone can be worn smooth, its debris dissolved and carried away with the tide. We are looking for fiction that represents this process.

Gives us sories and poems of underwater cities, rising seas, harrowing travels, creation, destruction, thirst, and whales. Give us space whales! Tell us about a galaxy of oceans contained in a holographic fishtank, preach the gospel of Poseidon, or win millions with the help of a chance-taking cephalopod. The opportunities for observant and original writing are as boundless as expansive as the briny deep. 

What do you think of when you hear the word “safety”? What does it mean to feel safe? What does it mean to be safe? We want pieces that explore, provoke, challenge, reconsider, evoke, or explode that concept for you.

We are looking for variety and originality. Tickle us, haunt us, gobsmack us. Choose your words carefully and leave our readers wanting more. And do it in a small space.

We strive to create conversations here at The Ilanot Review that could occur nowhere else.

Can we ever really go back home? Where do we belong?

Submissions can but do not need to directly deal with sexual assault. We hope to provide an avenue for publishing work about sexual assault, as it can be challenging to find markets open to that topic, and showcase the full, vibrant lives survivors lead outside their trauma.

A single $100 award will be given for an outstanding poem.

Breath allows us the space to grieve, accept, be joyous, irate, or peaceful, and it facilitates the process by which we move forward in the world--and do not. Inhale/Exhale holds space for a moment, story, or image in all of us. What is yours?

Tell us your experiences with local legends/myths or create your own hometown horrors! It can be from Bigfoot to Indigenous myths to any eldritch horror, as long as its lore is tethered to the history of a town.

We seek poetry that stings, work that burns us long after reading.

Our mandate has been to encourage the voices of new, emerging, and established Canadian writers while providing a platform to be proud of for their quality work.

We look for work that challenges, re-imagines or undermines the status quo, work that pushes at the boundaries of form and function, work that is striking and beautiful.

A visitation might be a knock at the door, a funereal ritual, a brush with the otherworldly, a legal mandate, an act of wrath, a moment of union. This folio seeks to think about doors, borders, power, incarceration, and other institutions which divide or limit our time.

We are looking for high-quality writing that engages with the nuances and complexities of our times and isn’t afraid to tackle difficult subjects.  We are especially interested in writing from people directly engaged in resistance and liberation.

We like the odd, the off-kilter, and the just plain weird. We like work that’s funny, that’s sad, and that’s both funny and sad at the same time. And we especially love to read the experimental, the surreal, and the genre-bending.

Tell us your stories of isolation, being left out, discriminated against. What about a time you did the excluding? Or flip it on its head and share the joy that comes from escaping the exclusion and finding your people. Surprise us (someone always does)!

This could be anything from first middle school dance to first female president.