Call for Submissions

 The Horror Story: Health and Healing Through the Lens of Horror

a decomp journal e-zine

Who is allowed to be healthy and at whose expense? How might an encounter with a medical professional feel routine for some, and for others, horrific?

In the western settler-colonial context, “good health” has historically been a measure of proximity to a specific set of identity categories: abled-bodied, cis-heterosexual, virtuous, respectable, white, male. Scientific and positivist inquiry make promises of a universal objectivity that awards the researcher, the scientist, and the medical professional a veil of anonymity and authority over the studied subject(s). Horrifying accounts of medical experimentation on Black female slaves  or Indigenous children in residential schools are a part of a long legacy of violence at the center of the current medical model and healthcare system.

This curated e-zine from decomp journal will help show that the genre of horror extends beyond the superficial thrill of slasher films and campfire stories, to ask how genres of horror (the weird, the macabre, and the supernatural) can offer a complex site of healing, cultural production, and empowering social commentary. Horror storytelling in the form of folklore, mythology, spirituality, and traditional medicine has also functioned as a site of healing and knowledge for many communities, and can be inextricable from collective understandings and embodiments of health and wellness. For the Anishinaabe, the Wendigo warns against the accumulation of wealth and encourages offerings as medicine, and for writers like Dan Rabarts (Ngati Porou), when the strong connection between land and the health of the Māori is threatened, it is a source of horrifying devastation (embodied through monsters, demons, or spirits).

We encourage submissions that use horror storytelling as a powerful epistemological tool to understand how we source individual and communal wellness, and how we can make powerful critiques that speak back to systems of oppression that have deadly health consequences.

Submissions might consider:

  • How might the aesthetic/genre of horror offer a way to articulate experiences of oppression or discrimination within health care systems?

  • What are alternative ways of knowing and practice, rooted in the holistic and/or metaphysical, that are related to health and healing?

  • How might representations of health and illness in horror storytelling (i.e., films, television series, and written/oral works) serve particular narratives (and how might this be critically interpreted)?

For our ezine/digital publication, we are accepting submissions that include (but are not limited to):

  • Creative prose (e.g. Poetry, short stories, essays, fiction and nonfiction)

  • Visual art

  • Ceremony

  • Video and audio work

  • Oral traditions

  • Film analysis

  • Academic essays

  • Personal essays

  • Multimedia and experimental projects (e.g. interactive and/or performance work)

  • Textile work/weaving

Submissions are welcome from folks around the globe.

We encourage you to think creatively and critically, within and beyond the aforementioned mediums. We ask you to try leaning into discomfort as a way to unsettle and challenge oppressive frameworks and systems (which may include “traditional academic convention”). We ask you to create in meaningful, imperfect, and authentic ways.

Lastly, we ask that you think about horror in all its transformative and complicated potential: “Horror is a window that has options, regardless of the genre you’re writing your horror within, to expose some of the rot that surrounds us, and putting it on the page might prompt the reader to think a little differently about things when they put the book down” - (Dan Rabarts).

Submission & Guidelines: Submit your work after reviewing our guidelines at https://decompjournal.com/submit

Note: decomp journal uses a third-party platform called Submittable to process submissions. We encourage sending submissions before the deadline in case of any technical issues.

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT: April 12, 2024 @ 11:59 PM PT

submit

Questions or concerns? Contact us:

decomp.magazine@gmail.com

Website: https://decompjournal.com

Instagram/Twitter: @decompjournal

Facebook: decompmagazine

[decomp journal Guidelines]

All submissions should be sent in using our online submittable platform. 

  • 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.