Bear-owned Kintsugi Books to publish anthology highlighting southern American queerness, accepting submissions

17th July 2020 Kyle Jackson

This week, I had a chance to talk to my friend and fellow Bear Dugdrick Bevins, a New York-based and Georgia-raised queer author, poet, educator and founder of Kintsugi Books — a new publishing company that dedicates itself to representing the voices of those that oftentimes go unnoticed in our society.

I was pleased to find out during our conversation that Kintsugi Books is currently compiling their first anthology, We Make Our Own Light, and looking for submissions for this project!

The anthology focuses on queerness and the south as place, each as defined by the artists themselves. Works that meld the two concepts are preferred but explorations of either are welcome, as are works that are influenced by southern spaces or queerness but do not directly address either.

Who is Welcome to submit:

All are welcome to submit! Right now most submissions have been from gay or bisexual men, but we want queer voices of color, queer womxn’s voices, poly voices, voices of heterosexual queers/allays, and fetish community voices. If you can answer in the affirmative to the question “has being southern ever impacted the expression of, or put you in a ‘closet’ because of, your gender, sex, or sexuality?” then your voice is relevant here.

What is Welcome:

Black and white photography, poetry, memoir, black and white illustration/art/comics, short fiction/flash fiction, essay, academic writing, and hybrid works are all welcome.

What and How:

Images: High Resolution black and white JPG (no PDFs). Portrait images will be on a single page and will generally be stretched to the bleed (about 8.5″x5.5″). Landscape images will generally be stretched across two pages centerfold style, to the bleed (about 8.5″x11″). Your name will appear before your section; images with digital signatures or watermarks will be rejected.
Poetry: You may submit up to 15 half page poems or 7 full page poems. Poem cycles and/or interrelated poems are welcome. If your poems have special design elements (creative spacing, images, font/format play) please submit pages as 8.5″x5.5″ JPG without your name on the JPG; your name will appear before your section. Otherwise, all submissions should be in DOC, DOCX, or GoogleDocs.
Prose: You may submit up to 7 full pages of prose. If images are imbedded in the text please set your document to 8.5″x5.5″ with narrow margins and 12pt font. All submissions should be in DOC, DOCX, or GoogleDocs.

General Notes:

Please submit using the submission form and directions at the bottom of the https://www.dudgrickbevins.com/kintsugibooks page.
We are accepting only previously unpublished works OR works your have the rights to republish. Works should not have appeared in physical print media before, through works performed, recorded, or in gallery shows are welcomed.