Submissions call from Anomaly Literary Journal

Writing.ie | Resources | Getting Published | Submission Opportunities | Submission Tips

Anomaly Literary Journal

31 January 2017

Anomaly Literary Journal, founded by Lorcán Black, Oliver Tatler, Roseanna Free and Joseph Birdsey, came into being because we wanted to create a literary journal that, from the outset, selected only the best of up and coming and established poets, artists and writers.  We have currently taking submissions for Anomaly Literary Journal: Issue 4 due for release this April.

For poetry:

We ask that you send a cover letter with a brief bio (in the 3rd person), with no more than six poems in an attachment (.doc, .docx, .rtf formats please or if you prefer, in the body of the email. Whatever is easiest for you). Poems are not limited to a particular length, though we do ask you be reasonable. Please see previous issues for a reference to the kind of styles we enjoy.

For fiction:

Again, no more than six pieces per submission (as an attachment) and include a cover letter, and a short bio in the third person. Please try to adhere to a reasonable word count, I’m afraid due to time and effort, this will have to be limited to an absolute maximum of 2,000-5,000 words per piece.

Flash fiction is also welcome but be warned, we are very picky!

Any and all subjects are welcome but again, like poetry submissions, we will take only the highest quality no matter what the style.

Non-fiction/Commentary:

There are no rules for non-fiction, except adherence to a word-count of between 2,000-5,000 words on any topic and up to three submissions at once.

Art submissions:

Any artists with some decent experience (or none if it’s good!) are welcome to send their work and a profile of themselves, their work, their themes etc (but this is not necessary, it’s entirely up to you). We are open to all styles of artwork, please ensure it is a very high resolution, and sized as large as possible however- it makes our lovely Joseph Birdsey’s job much easier!

Please send a minimum of six pieces with a cover letter, detailing your work, your experience (whatever that may be) and a little bit about yourself. We are accepting anything from paintings, photography, sketches, screens, you name it we are open to it. We can’t stress enough that the artwork is just as important to us as the literary side of the journal, we don’t see it as additional but integral.

If you are an artist or photographer, consider what we exhibit in previous issues as a reference point and send in your work.

We cannot, ever, express how vital artwork and photography is to Anomaly– it is just as vital as the poetry, fiction and non-fiction we present and it is something we very much wish to be just as inundated with in our inbox.

Simultaneous submissions are fine, as long as you notify us immediately if your work is picked up elsewhere and withdraw it.

All rights remain with the author but upon publication we reserve the right to the non-exclusive, royalty-free and perpetual license to use and display your work, either online or in print including, without limitation, promoting and redistributing part or all of the site.

Please send submissions as outlined above to: anomalylit@gmail.com  Allow us some time to get through submissions. We all work for a living and this journal is very much a labour of love, so we may not respond until very close to the date of publication.

We very much look forward to considering your submissions!

About Anomaly Literary Journal:

Anomaly Literary Journal, founded by Lorcán Black, Oliver Tatler, Roseanna Free and Joseph Birdsey, came into being from a conversation in a beer garden in Covent Garden, London.
‘We wanted to create a literary journal that, from the outset, selected only the best of up and coming poets, artists and writers. In an online market flooded with literary journals of all kinds, we realised something: it’s been a long time since any of us read a journal that contained pieces where each one gripped us and made us wish we’d written it, where not all the poets sounded the same, where there was variety of all different sorts of writing, not just one or two decent poems and the rest were filler, but hosted a succession of decent, skilled poems one after the other like a series of bangs in the distance.
‘The idea was to create a journal where lacklustre writing had no foothold. Poetry is an art. It is not a thought, or a description of emotion formed into a collection of stanzas that merely resemble a poem (which we think is all too common) and nothing deeper. A real poem, is a weapon. It is the arrowhead sculpted from flint, finely honed, sharp and focused.
‘We wanted a journal that did not limit its writers too much. We will not request that a poet keep his or her poem to a limit of 40, or even 100 lines. If you send us a 150 line poem, all we ask is that you make every line count. Every single word, in fact.
‘We want deep, dense, blood-fueled poems that do not apologise for having impact, or intelligence or intensity. We love imagery and metaphor, we demand poetry and fiction that makes us think, that leaves the cogs of our little minds churning to keep up with it.
‘We want writers who have honed their talent through hard work and persistence, writers who are striving to find their voice, hone it or perhaps already have it and continue to hone it further. The only writers who we wish to hear from are those for whom writing is a compulsion, who will not stop attacking a poem or a story until it is fashioned into the finest possible version of itself, in short, we want writers who bleed words.
‘From our desire for this, and the lack of it, we founded Anomaly. We will strive to be the journal that does not shy away from truly good writing, or a dark edge but welcomes talent when it sees it.
‘We are paying for Anomaly with only our time, and we hope writers and readers will pay us back with their time.’

We hope you read, if you write we hope you submit but mostly, we very much hope you enjoy.