Usawa: Call for Submissions - December 2024 Issue
Photograph by: Ryan Stowers
Fa’afafine
Taken in Faleapuna at a road side shop
Faʻafafine (translated: “in the manner of a woman”) are natal males who align with a third gender or gender role in Samoa.
For its December 2024 Issue, Usawa Literary Review invites contributions in form of poetry, short fiction, reviews, interviews, essays, creative nonfiction, queer auto-fiction, (and any other genre-bending genre which queers the concept of genres), around the theme, ‘Gender & Its Discontents ’.
Gender is perhaps one of the most naturalised, and hence problematic of strands which make our social identities. When intersected with class, caste, or sexual orientation, gender can provide us with immense social and cultural capital, or conversely, become the reason that such positions are denied to us, violently, deliberately. In Amrita Mahale’s novel, Milk Teeth (2018), we witness Kartik Kinni, a privileged, upper caste male lead a shameful, double life as closeted homosexual frequenting railway toilets to have sex. The Pink Chaddi Campaign, a nonviolent protest campaign launched in 2009, by the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women, entailed women from all over India sending pink underwear (chaddis) to offices of an ultra-conservative, right-wing group which had, on and around Valentine’s Day, resorted to moral policing and violence against pub-going couples (especially women). In the Bollywood film, Chandigarh Kare Aashqui (2021), we see how the heroine’s revelation that she is a post-op transwoman causes anxieties in her alpha-male, gym-trainer lover, and reveals him to be homophobic. Gender also serves as the naturalized pathway to normalcy, a position of dominance, or a source of existential angst and never-ending struggles for recognition – depending on where in the myriad, multi-layered hierarchies we find ourselves.
For our December Issue, we solicit submissions across categories, which interrogate what gender means to us; how it intersects with class, caste, and sexuality to influence our lived realities; how different forms of kinship relations emanate from and support different gender configurations and vice versa; how individuals – males, females, intersex – irrespective of their sexual orientation, resist, and consolidate their gendered selves; how the hegemony of heteronormativity structures modern cultural discourse, as well as our own ideas of personhood, and the ways we can and do resist this.
Feel free to rummage through your memories, parse popular culture, reflect on contemporary socio-political developments, and critique through your fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, and reviews, those gendered structures which make the world around you, which make you, you, and how these can be challenged, subverted, consolidated, and written.
We look forward to your submissions.
Our submission process has changed. We now accept submissions only through our website. Please familiarise yourself with the updated submission process and do NOT hesitate to ask for help at info@usawa.in or social@usawa.in
Deadline: 20 September 2024
We pay our contributors
General Guidelines
Usawa Contributor Registration: Please fill the form for each submission. All submissions except visual narratives will be made through the form.
Submission Format:
All submissions apart from visual narratives are to be made through the form. Please follow the instructions attached to ensure that your submission reaches us.
Compose your brief (~80 words) bio in the third person at the end of your submission. Please ensure to include your photograph and social media handles.
Payment Policy:
As of December 2023, Usawa has become a paying market.
Submission Limitations:
You may submit up to one entry for each genre during a given submission period.
Although we prefer exclusive submissions, we understand if you choose to make simultaneous submissions. In such cases, please promptly notify us if another publication accepts your piece before our review. To withdraw your submission, kindly contact the sectional editor and the Managing Editor by email.
Please be aware that any work published in Usawa cannot be reprinted in any other publication, whether online or in print, until six months after the initial publishing date. After this period, we request that you send us a formal intimation and credit Usawa wherever the piece is republished by contacting our Managing Editor.
Editing Policy:
We regret to inform you that minor edits cannot be accommodated once an issue has been published. Only in the case of major errors may you contact our Managing Editor for consideration.
We encourage you to peruse our previous issues and review our monthly newsletters to gain insight into our editorial preferences. You may subscribe to our newsletter here
Due to the high volume of submissions and limited staff, we regretfully cannot offer feedback on the pieces that we are unable to run.
Thank you for adhering to our submission guidelines. We eagerly anticipate reviewing your work.
Section Guidelines
Poetry:
Please submit 4-6 poems.
Usawa will be publishing unpublished poems only. However, poems that have been shared on the author’s social media are acceptable.
If you have previously published work that strongly resonates with our theme kindly share the same with our Poetry Editor, Babitha Marina Justin, at babitha@usawa.in stating why you would like the piece to be considered. The body of editors will review it collectively and take a decision accordingly.
Short Fiction:
Submit short fiction of length between 2000-5000 words.
While our primary focus is on literary fiction that explores the depth and complexity of the human experience, we are also open to exceptional works of genre fiction that push boundaries and offer fresh perspectives. Bring us stories with emotional depth, vivid characterization, and inventive storytelling.
Our Fiction Editor, Kinshuk Gupta, can be reached at kinshuk@usawa.in for queries.
Translations:
Include at least 4 poems or a text ranging from 2000-5000 words for consideration. The translation should be alongside the source text.
Please ensure that you have the original author’s consent and mention the same in your submission. Include the original author’s short bio and photograph if possible.
Our Translations Editor, Sonakshi Srivastava, can be reached at sonakshi@usawa.in for queries.
Book Reviews:
Submit 1000-1500 word book reviews. Reviews can be of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction books.
Submission Guidelines for Book Reviews
Our Reviews Editor, Ankush Banerjee, can be reached at ankush@usawa.in for queries.
Nonfiction:
Submit nonfiction of length up to 5000 words.
We are looking for pieces that reflect honesty of the experience, personal or from the point of witness. What are you subverting? Why? Send us well-crafted writings, especially essays, or even hybrid pieces, in a way that we look at the world anew even though the facts remain the same. We’re most excited by not only reading about things little known or talked about, but also by pieces that subvert and surprise.
Our Nonfiction Editor, Smita Sahay, can be reached at smita@usawa.in for queries.
Visual Narrative submissions:
Please send up to six-eight stand-alone photographs or photo essays in .jpeg format at 300dpi along with an artist statement or a paragraph about the inspiration behind your piece to our Visual Narratives Editor, Priyanka Sacheti at priyanka@usawa.in.
We are looking for images which see the world anew, the camera revealing what our gaze sometimes overlooks. There are so many ways of looking and we are particularly interested in those images moving away from and challenging the patriarchal/male gaze. We would also like to see images where the framing of a subject is as much a story as the subject itself.
We welcome both landscape and portrait-oriented images as well as colour and black and white images.
Interview Submissions:
The interview piece should have at least 5-8 questions. Kindly mention whether you have taken the interview in person, by any virtual tool, or through questionnaires. Kindly include a short description of 100 words, highlighting what made you choose the individual.
We are looking for interviews of people from every sphere of the society. Since our world is built with dreams, hard work, kindness, and compassion, our objective is to understand people who embody these traits in their work. Our idea is to acknowledge and celebrate an individual’s contributions towards shaping the society.
Our Interviews Editor, Kabir Deb, can be reached at kabir@usawa.in for queries.
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