Call for Submissions
Body Language
For our Spring/Summer 2023 issue, Body Language, Nimrod International Journal invites poems, short stories, creative nonfiction pieces, and translations about the body.
We live inside our bodies. They are a vital part of how we experience the world, the source of some of our greatest pleasure and greatest pain. They are constantly changing, sometimes in ways that bring us joy and sometimes in ways that we find distressing. We use our bodies as a way—quite literally—to reach out to others. They are what other people observe of us, and they can become canvases that show our identities, moods, and beliefs, but we can also feel trapped inside them. They both represent and misrepresent who and what we think we are.
In this issue, we want to explore any and all ideas about the body. Indeed, we may say “the body” in our suggestions below, but we especially wish to acknowledge and embrace that there is no one body, that our bodies, the way we use them and the way they feel, span an astonishing range of experience. Each of us lives in and as a particular body, and each of our bodies has its own stories to tell.
What We Are Seeking:
We’re looking for work that explores ideas of the body in all its forms. Here are a few examples of what submissions for this issue might look like:
- Work that celebrates all aspects of the body
- Work about the pleasure that the body can bring us via touch, eating, sex, appetite, physical activity, etc.
- Work about pain, injury, or illness and how it affects our bodies, minds, and lives
- Work about specific parts of the body
- Work about the intersection of body and identity, including explorations of race, transgender and nonbinary bodies, bodies of all sizes, and bodies with disability or physical difference
- Work about changing bodies, including work about aging; work about pregnancy, miscarriage, and giving birth; work about dysphoria and transition; work about growth or shrinkage; and work about body embellishment
- Work about the body as outward expression and performance
- Work about the body as a vehicle for creative and artistic work
- Work about the body as a means of communication, from body language to sign language
- Work about physicality in all its forms
This list is just to get your ideas flowing; we hope that you will surprise us with additional ideas that explore the concept of our bodies 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.
- 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 2023 Theme.” Send a SASE for response. Postal submissions are free.
- For those submitting online: Please submit work online under the theme category at: 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 June 1, 2022.
Postmark deadline: October 1, 2022
Publication date: Spring 2023
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 two copies of the issue in which their work appears.
Send postal manuscripts to:
Nimrod Journal
“Spring 2023 Theme”
The University of Tulsa
800 S. Tucker Dr.
Tulsa, OK 74104
Submit online at: https://nimrodjournal.submittable.com/submit
Questions: nimrod@utulsa.edu
Currently Open Submission Categories
- Submissions for the 6th Francine Ringold Awards for New Writers are open through July 15th, 2022.
- Thematic Submissions for the Spring/Summer 2023 thematic issue, Body Language, are open through October 1st, 2022.