SUBMISSIONS

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED for the issue 10, themed the body.
Issue 10 is now live.

You might be familiar with one of these famous sentences:

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. – Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, Tr. Edwin and Willa Muir

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin. – Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke – Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Maybe the purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to becoming writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads other people – Annie Ernaux, Happening

Home, vehicle, site of desire – the body. We dance, sing, perform, write, play, cuddle, feed, nurture with the body. We hold health and sickness in the body. We judge the size, shape, color of bodies, of parts of bodies. We hate, buy, sell, and violate the body. We terrorize the other by threatening their bodies.

What is the ideal body? What are the normal abilities of the body? We watch the body. The bodies of babies grow within the bodies of their mothers.

How does the body store memories, trauma, joy?

What is our relationship to the bodies of those who have passed?

How would you write the body? Your own, someone else’s, another species’? How have artists, writers, sculptors rendered the body in their work?

What is the relationship of the body with space – home spaces, workplaces, public places?

What happened to women’s bodies through space and time? What happens to all bodies through space and time?

Guidelines:

) Mention SUBMISSION – ‘Genre’ in the subject line of your email.
) Send your submissions as attached Word file, font Garamond, font size 12.
) If you are submitting artwork please send us a high resolution image with your signature or watermark.
) Please send in your works to the respective Editors:Submit 1-4 poems to our to our Editor at smita@usawa.in or our Associate Editor at kinshuk@usawa.in

From the December issue onwards, Usawa will be publishing unpublished poems only. Poems that have been shared on the author’s social media will be acceptable. If you have work that resonates strongly with the theme, but has been published online or in print before do share the same with the Editor stating why you would like the piece to be considered. The body of editors will review it collectively and take a decision accordingly.

Submit short fiction of length up to 5000 words to our Fiction Editor, Babitha Marina Justin, at babitha@usawa.in

Submit your translated works to Sonakshi Srivastava at Sonakshi@usawa.in. Please ensure that you have the original author’s consent.

Send Book Reviews to our Books Editors, Ankush Banerjee, at ankush@usawa.in

Submission Guidelines for Book Reviews

Submit non fiction of length up to 5000 words to our Non Fiction Editor, Shobhana Kumar, at shobhana@usawa.in<br.

Non-fiction submissions

What we are looking for:
Pieces that reflect honesty of the experience, personal or from the point of witness.
Show us the universality of the personal, the ingredients that bind us all as human, one.
Vulnerability, curiosity.
An evident love for the language, care for the sentence and structure, and attention to detail. ( We do expect pieces to reflect craft but give us authenticity to go with it. Simply put, we may pick a piece that is honest over one that glorifies technique.)
Not more than 3000 words. Okay, 3500 if it is exceptional.
Nonfiction: shobhana@usawa.in

Photography submissions

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.

Please title your email subject line as Your-Name — Photography.
Please send up to six-eight stand-alone photographs or photo essays in a .jpeg format at 300dpi + an artist statement or paragraph about the inspiration behind your piece in the cover letter to priyanka@usawa.in

Both landscape and portrait oriented images
Both Colour and black and white images

For any other queries please write to our Editor at smita@usawa.in or our Associate Editor at kinshuk@usawa.in

) Write your ~80 word bio in third person in the email body of your submission. Do send your photograph, and your social media handles too.
) We neither offer payment for acceptance, nor provide feedback on the pieces that we decline.
) You can submit up to one submission for each genre in a given submission period.
) Last date for submission: Midnight 30th September, 2023, IST.

SUBMISSIONS

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED for the issue 10, themed the body.Issue 10 is now live.

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED for the issue 10, themed the body.
Issue 10 is now live.