Dgëku is a magazine of writing & arts founded to celebrate and amplify creative works by queer Africans and the diaspora. We are looking for submissions that explore the full range of human experiences and tastes, pieces that are aware of their own mechanics and yet bold enough to break away from form.
We are as interested in writing that interrogates the state (society) as we are in creative attempts to investigate the self—its various modalities of presenting and being in the world. Our publication interest includes poetry, personal essays, fiction, literary/cultural criticisms, multimedia arts, & photography.
We accept only fresh and original writings previously unpublished anywhere online. Dgëku holds first serial rights for materials published on our site or in our future print issue; however, the copyright reverts to the author upon publication. We only ask that authors cite Dgëku wherever else the piece is republished.
Payment
We offer authors a modest honorarium for any of their submissions accepted and published in Dgëku. We pay $150 for prose pieces of 3,000 words or more, $30 for an individual poem and $100 maximum for a suite of poems. Prose pieces under 3,000 words will be compensated accordingly depending on whether such pieces are flash fiction, book review, cultural commentary, interview, or dispatches.
Submission Guidelines
Please send no more than six poems at once. Prose submissions should not exceed 5,000 words except in rare cases in which we will request a pitch instead from the author.
Prose submissions should be double-spaced and set in standard fonts, preferably Times New Roman 12, and attached as Word document files. Poets, please format your submissions to reflect each poem’s structural integrity, bearing in mind the inadequacies of the digital form to support extremely experimental formats.
We are open to simultaneous submissions as long as you notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
Submissions should be sent to submit@dgeku.com along with a brief cover letter. Expect our response within 8 weeks. If you have not heard from us after two months, please feel free to query us at publisher@dgeku.com.