•  
  •  
 

Call for Submissions

Now accepting submissions for Volume 3, Issue 1: Writing-as-Activism in a Time of Destruction

At Imagining America’s most recent National Gathering in Providence this past October, a group sat around a table and collectively dreamt this Call for Submissions into existence. Asked to share a piece that reflects the beating heart of writing-as-activism for them, the writers, artists, activists, and academics around the circle – agents of transformative change, all – brought into the room bell hooks and Hang Kang and Martín Espada and Ross Gay and adrienne maree brown and Walt Whitman and Sonya Renee Taylor and Glennon Doyle and Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison and Mark Nowak and Simon Armitage. Their words electrified the space, reminding us of the power of making in the face of injustice, violence, and despair.

Maxine Hong Kingston voiced this powerfully in the 1989 novel Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book:

In a time of destruction, create something.
A poem. A parade. A community. A school. A vow. A moral principle.
One peaceful moment.

For the upcoming Spring 2024 issue of Amplify: Writing-as-Activism in a Time of Destruction, we invite you to create something as resistance to, as intervention against, as interruption in literal and/or figurative destruction. Make something that does the work of exposing the lie of destruction as our inevitable way. Your submitted work might…

  • Engage with, build upon, or bring your own go-to examples of writing-as-activism into conversation with other works, contexts, or your own points of perspective;
  • Process, (de)construct, or re-envision historical, current, or future moments in time;
  • Take the form of a poem; scholarly article; manifesto; lyrics; creative writing; (non)fictional graphic narrative; artwork; work that incorporates audio and/or visual components; something else entirely;
  • Stretch you to go beyond your usual means of expression to make something new;
  • Respond to the invitation of creation from the places and moments of resistance, grief, survival, solidarity, and hope you find, seek, and move between in times of destruction.

We ask that submissions to this next issue be received by May 15th, 2024. Before you submit, please review the journal’s editorial policies, including the peer review process that will follow your submission. Please email the journal’s managing editors with any questions you may have as you prepare your submission, or if you are feeling unsure about the length, format, or other aspects of your work as a potential fit for Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism.

We welcome your submission of work from the following broad formatting categories:
  • Articles, essays, fiction, creative nonfiction (up to 5000 words)
  • Poetry (up to 10 pages, submitted as individual poems or as a connected manuscript)
  • Written works that contain visual elements (including graphic texts and works that include illustrations)
  • Written works that include sound files