UPDATE: Submissions for this special issue are now closed. We look forward to reaching out to our winners in the near future. Keep checking our site for upcoming special issue and contest submission opportunities (and for daily content, of course), or submit for regular publication at any time to our open categories, which are updated in the Submit section at the top right of our homepage or viewable in our Submittable portal.
We live in a time when our phones and tablets allow our physical selves to be morphed curations on glass screens we touched – if we are lucky and not essentially fighting for our lives – far more than we gave hugs to friends or stood in crowds in the last few months. We engage in a time that has never felt lonelier, a time that has always been this lonely for those of us who strive against systemic oppression, or are put in the position of correcting those who stand in solidarity while keeping their hegemonic positions centered? What is lost when you are at a loss to understand? How do you understand turmoil, oppression, suppression, abandonment, guilt, shame, or estrangement? Whatever you are wondering about loneliness, we want to know. Columbia Journal is excited to read your stories, meditations, and poetry on loneliness with our new special issue featuring poetry, fiction, translation, art, and non-fiction. We encourage you to break form as we invite you for the chance to be featured in our special online issue, inspired by an ever-changing present. We welcome all writing that renders clarity to the theme of loneliness.
Submission Guidelines
Fiction: We accept short or flash fiction of up to 1,000 words.
Nonfiction: We accept personal essays, narrative nonfiction and memoir of up to 1,000 words.
Poetry: Two poems of up to three pages total.
Art: Two images of any form of fine art (sculpture, painting, mixed-media, photography, etc.) in digital form.
Translation: We accept English translations of poetry, fiction and nonfiction (submission guidelines apply for each genre).
- All work must be original and previously unpublished in any form.
- If your submission spans genres, we recommend you submit to the genre that you’d most like to see your work considered.
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please inform us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- Use 12 point font sizes with double-spacing for prose, or single space for poetry, unless you are breaking form.
- We welcome submissions from all over the world. However, if you have studied or taught at the Columbia University Writing Program at any time in the past five years, you are ineligible to submit.
- Submission fee is $5
- PRIZE: Winners in each genre will receive $50
- All work must be submitted through Submittable (we will not accept mailed submissions)
- DEADLINE for submissions is June 15th, 2020
