Call for Submissions
Refuge
For our Spring/Summer 2024 issue, Nimrod International Journal invites poems, short stories, creative nonfiction pieces, and translations on the theme of refuge.
At some point in each of our lives, we need refuge: space that makes us feel safe, protected, and sheltered. Where do we find refuge? How do we find it? What forms does it take? Refuge may be a physical space, as small as a favorite room or as large as a new country, or it may be a mental space, a way that we find security within our own minds. Refuge may be found within a person or group of people, from family and friends to people on the internet. Whether it’s a condition we’ve already found, or something that we’re still seeking, the idea of refuge carries power.
In this issue, we want to examine refuge in both its literal and its metaphorical dimensions.
What We Are Seeking:
We’re looking for work that explores ideas of refuge in all its forms. Here are a few examples of what submissions for this issue might look like:
- Work about physical refuge, the spaces that rejuvenate us, calm us, and make us feel safe
- Work about psychological refuge, whether that’s space we create in our own minds, the people we turn to for solace and support, or other aspects of mental refuge
- Work about migration, refugees, asylum seekers, and all those in need of shelter
- Work about exile or sanctuary
- Work about what it means to be unhomed, not only the material deprivation, but the social invisibility that often goes along with it
- Work about refuge in terms of wildlife, nature, and environmental preservation
- Work about how it affects us when we find—or cannot find—refuge in our own bodies
- Work about seeking safety from threats, physical or psychological
This list is just to get your ideas flowing; we hope that you will surprise us with additional ideas that explore the concept of refuge in new and imaginative ways.
We are excited about this issue, so please send your work and share this announcement with writing groups, students, and friends. We hope to receive a variety of material for this issue, with interpretations of this theme from writers of all backgrounds and publication histories; we especially welcome work from writers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color, writers of all sexual orientations and gender identities, writers of varying socio-economic status, and writers with physical or mental differences.
The Specifics:
- Fiction and creative nonfiction may be up to 7,500 words; poetry may be up to 7 pages.
- All work must be previously unpublished.
- Multiple submissions are acceptable, but poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction should be sent as separate submissions.
- Work not originally in English must be translated into English. For work in translation, translators are responsible for obtaining permission to reprint any material under copyright that exceeds the guidelines of fair use or does not have a Creative Commons license.
- Prose should be typed, double-spaced, one side of plain white paper only. Poetry should be typed, one side of plain white paper only, no more than one poem per page.
- For those submitting by mail: Please mark both your cover letter and the outer envelope with “Spring 2024 Theme.” Send a SASE for response. Postal submissions are free.
- For those submitting online: Please submit work online under the theme category at: nimrodjournal.submittable.com/submit. A $3 fee is charged for online submissions to cover the administrative costs associated with those submissions.
- If the online submission fee or the postage to send work by mail will pose a substantial economic burden, writers may seek a waiver of the fee. To seek a waiver, please email us at nimrod@utulsa.edu with your request and reasons for seeking a waiver.
Manuscripts will be accepted beginning May 1, 2023.
Postmark deadline: September 1, 2023
Publication date: Spring 2024
Payment: $10/printed page with a $200 maximum.
Nimrod is a nonprofit literary magazine published by The University of Tulsa, with issues appearing twice a year. All contributors to the magazine also receive one digital and two physical copies of the issue in which their work appears.
Send postal manuscripts to:
Nimrod Journal
The University of Tulsa
800 S. Tucker Dr.
Tulsa, OK 74104
Submit online at: https://nimrodjournal.submittable.com/submit
Questions: Email nimrod@utulsa.edu