Call for Submissions
(en)visionary futures
a decomp journal e-zine edited by Isabel Stamp
decomp journal is now accepting unpublished submissions of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, art and media for its fourth themed zine, (en)visionary futures
The ongoing global pandemic and its responsive resistance movements have demonstrated the importance of visionary futures. These are multiple, alternate, and imagined realities that envision how we might practice our commitments to social injustice and inequality. Using storytelling and art to explore our lived encounters with institutions, the state, patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism, has become a strategy for subverting the ways oppression works upon and through us, and has restricted the flows of creativity and alternate knowledges in our day-to-day lives.
In her book Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Adrienne Maree Brown posits that we are within an “imagination battle,” where she often feels “trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free” (11). brown writes that delving into our imaginations enables us to
imagine new worlds that transition ideologies and norms, so that no one sees Black people as murderers, or Brown people as terrorists and aliens, but all of us as cultural and economic innovators (11).
Though no fictive reality can substitute for social justice and the work that goes into it, as a starting point, or a momentary break between challenging work, we can invoke our imaginations in ways that transcend theoretical frameworks and roadblocks.
This call for submissions asks for (en)visionary futures that can help create powerful forums for resistance by reimagining our relation to various institutions, economies, and states. These visionary futures can also reassess issues such as resource distribution, power systems, and relationships. By using our imaginations, we can additionally interfere with the linearity of our oppressive structures within and beyond our own timelines. How might we differently redistribute resources and consider self-sustaining agriculture? How might we reshape the public and privatized education systems to highlight alternate knowledges and approaches to learning?
We ask for works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and media or art that envisions and creates, but also challenges what we consider reality. If our imagination is shaped by “our entire experience, our socialization, the concepts we are exposed to, [and] where we fall in the hierarchies of society,” then we should be aware of the multiple, alternate futures envisioned, in the same way that there are multiple, alternate realities (brown, 10). In our collection visions, we hope to capture the optimism and the anger that come from being an advocate and an accomplice to social justice.
Submissions open February 15, 2022 and close April 1, 2022.
Gentle reminder that if you take inspiration from a specific community, be mindful of how you do so, and give credit where it is due.
[decomp journal Guidelines]
We invite submissions of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and art and other media. All submissions should be sent in using our online submittable platform.
For poetry: You can submit up to 3 poems at a time
For Prose: 8,000 words maximum. If you write pieces that are under 1,000 words, feel free to submit two.
Art/other media: We accept art across all mediums as long as they can be uploaded in JPG, mp3 or mp4 files
We only accept previously unpublished work and yes, we consider websites, blogs, youtube channels, etc, as previously published.
We readily encourage simultaneous submissions, all we ask is that you notify us when another market accepts your work.
We aim to respond to submission within 90 days. If you don’t hear from us at all please reach out.
Unfortunately, there is no payment at this time.
If your work is accepted, it is subject to minor editing and copyrighted upon publication, plus you automatically grant us First North American Serial Rights to publish it first and Archival Rights to archive it online. Rights revert back to the author upon publication. If a piece of yours is reprinted, please mention it appeared in decomp first.
