Hey, Forumites! I'm an intern for River Styx, a St. Louis-based literary journal, and we have an open call for submissions with the theme of Posthuman. We are looking for poetry, fiction, non-fiction, short plays, and visual art. RS is litfic, so think stories that leverage excellent prose, a strong narrative quality, connect to the zeitgeist, and make commentary on what it means to be human. For short fiction, our word limit is similar to WotF, we have a flexible limit of 12,000 words. There is a small entry fee of $5 that goes to supporting our non-profit. Our journal does not have a paywall, so you can check out the recent publication here, for a general sense of the RS voice.
The deadline is 10/30/24. Here is the link to our submissions page.
We'd love to see your work! And if you have questions about the competition, please email me at [email protected].
RS109: The Posthuman Issue
In his treatise on the interconnectedness of all things, The Ecological Thought, Timothy Morton writes, “Being a person means never being sure you’re one” (Morton). What makes us human now? That’s the question we’re asking ourselves at River Styx. How do we locate and nurture our humanity in a world that feels increasingly posthuman? We are surrounded by—entangled with—climate change, AI, pandemics, genocide, cultural erasure, and the threat of total war. Yet, for all that doom, there are reasons to hope …aren’t there? Intrepid leaps in space exploration, medical research, nanotechnology, quantum computing, and food production are a few that come to mind.
For River Styx 109, we want to read about these hopes, about what it means to be—and continue being—human in a posthuman landscape. Send us your stories, poems, essays, short plays, and art about the earth and our relationship to it, about identity, about spirituality, about violence, about love in a world increasingly out-of-love with humanity.
Guidelines for Writers
We accept fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry.
- All prose pieces should be typed, double-spaced, and page-numbered.
- For fiction, we consider microfiction, short fiction, and short stories less than 12,000 words.
- Please send no more than one short story, essay, or play per submission. Stories of 1500 words or fewer may be sent in groups of up to three. Stories that exceed 1500 words should be sent in individual files.
- For nonfiction, we only accept work of 3000 or fewer words. Essays of 500 words or fewer may be sent in groups of up to three.
- For plays, we consider all forms and lengths.
- For poetry, send up to five poems per submission.
----- - Please submit your work electronically to the relevant genre or issue portal via Submittable. We no longer accept hard copy or email submissions.
- Work submitted to River Styx must be previously unpublished in print or online, including social media posts.
- We will read simultaneous submissions but ask that you inform us of such and notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
- Translations are welcome if permission has been granted from the copyright owner.
- All submissions will be considered for our online magazine. Submissions for our print edition should be submitted through the print submission portal. We open the portal twice per year. Follow us on social media for submission period announcements. If your submission is not accepted for the print edition, we will consider it for online publication.
- Expect up to five months for a decision. Please do not query before five months have passed. Also, we may take longer to consider longform work.
Guidelines for Visual Artists
- We accept a range of visual art and multimedia, including photos, videos, interactive graphics, multimodal and mixed media work, and more. For submissions that cannot be easily uploaded, you may submit a URL and screengrabs to Submittable or contact us for assistance using our Contact Form.
- For cover art we seek a single, striking color image, 5.5" x 8.5", that can be wrapped around the block. Cover images should be horizontal/landscape orientation (or able to be cropped). Be mindful of where the spine will fall, and which portion of the image will be visible on the front cover.
- If your work is a part of a series of images, please submit up to 12 images. We like having choices.
- Graphic stories may run as long as they need to tell the story. Page length is limited only by how long they keep our interest.
- If submitting a multi-page artistic work, such as a graphic short story, please submit only one at a time.
"Never tell me the odds!" -Han Solo
