Lolwe is accepting submissions for Issue 8 throughout the month of August (August 1 – 31, 2023). The issue will be guest-edited by Charmaine Denison-George (Sierra Leone), Logain Ali (Sudan), and Alírio Karina (Mozambique).
We are looking for work that is bold, different, and blurs or pushes boundaries: play with form and language, ignore genre classifications, send in your fears and joys, your doubts and faiths, your curiosities and silences.
Submission Guidelines
What to submit: Fiction, essays, poetry, and photography.
Who can submit: Black (African, Caribbean, Diaspora) artists.
When to submit: 1 August to 31 August 2023.
(*Please note however that due to the volume of submissions we receive, the categories will close once we have reached the submission cap and you will not be able to submit when that happens even if there’s still some time before the deadline. Therefore, we encourage you to submit as early as possible.)
How long:
- 1,000-10,000 words for fiction and essays.
- Min. 3 – Max. 5 poems contained in a single document.
- Min. 5 – Max. 10 images/artworks in one document alongside 200-500 words about the work. (If you’d like to submit an image for the cover, just submit a single high resolution version in the photography category)
Which format: Word document, Times New Roman, 12pt, double-spaced.
When to expect a response: 3-4 months after submission deadline. Please don’t enquire about submission status until the time has lapsed.
Queries to info@lolwe.org.
Multiple submissions: No. Please submit one submission per submission cycle and to only one category. Any submission to more than one or the wrong category will be automatically rejected.
Simultaneous submissions: Yes. Just remember to withdraw if accepted elsewhere. For poetry, leave a note on submittable indicating which poem(s) is/are no longer available. Please note that failure to withdraw or notify us of work accepted/published elsewhere will lead to an automatic disqualification of the entire work submitted.
Republishing: No. Only original, unpublished submissions will be read. Previously published work is not accepted at all.
Submission fees: None. Feel free to donate a “tip” to us though.
Payment: Lolwe will offer a modest remuneration for work that is accepted for publication.
Send a brief bio alongside the submission.
The Guest Editors
Charmaine Denison-George is from Freetown, Sierra Leone. She is currently a Creative Writing (fiction) candidate at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. She enjoys writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, occasionally. Charmaine is also an associate editor at Poda-Poda Stories, an online journal for Sierra Leonean literary arts.
Logain Ali is a writer, teacher, editor and poet. She is based in Sudan and holds a Biotechnology degree from Monash University. Logain has been writing poetry for the past 14 years, and, to her, it has been an avenue of self-expression, a sanctuary, and a placeholder for her emotions. She is honing her writing skills and anticipates exploring different forms of poetry to be published.
Alírio Karina is a Mozambican scholar and poet writing in English and Portuguese. Alíriohas a PhD in History of Consciousness, with designated emphases in Feminist Studies and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies, from the University of California, Santa Cruz. A scholar of African and Black social and political thought, their teaching and research engages the fields of feminist studies, museum studies, anthropology, literature, history, political economy, and postcolonial philosophy. Their current research project examines how the idea of Africa is the product of the legacies of anthropology, and what it might mean to do African studies — and to think Africa — in a way autonomous of anthropology.
For any further questions or clarifications, please email publicity@lolwe.org.
Submit via Lolwe.