Call for Submissions: Black Prose and Poetry for ‘FIYAH’

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Email your call-out to [email protected] (do not send your submissions here) Subject line: Call for submissions.

 

 

FIYAH

About: FIYAH rises from the ashes of the Black literary tradition started by Fire!! in 1926. They aren’t here for respectability. They’re here to ask what it means to be Black and extraordinary. They are a place to showcase your stories and grow your career. Part literary incubator, part middle-finger to the establishment, they know you have stories to tell, and they are here for it.

They want to spill tea and throw shade in the most delightful way. They are intersectional and welcome disabled, LGBTQIA, and neurodivergent brothers and sisters. Don’t hesitate to send them your stories. Don’t self reject.

Submissions: FIYAH is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features stories by and about Black people of the African Diaspora. This definition is globally inclusive (Black anywhere in the world) and also applies to mixed/biracial and Afro-appended people regardless of gender identity or orientation.

SOUND AND COLOR 

A new world hangs
outside the window
beautiful and strange

These lyrics open the song “Sound and Color” by rockstar Black woman Brittney Howard and her Alabama Shakes from way back in the before-time of 2015. The album by the same name went on to win one Grammy and some nominations for others. Its also-award-winning video features a Black astronaut coming out of cryo-stasis and awakening to a new world…hanging…outside the window. We want to see stories and poems about experiencing new worlds with particular emphasis on sensory detail. Magic systems based on color schemes, aural spectres in northern lights, the hearing of mysterious voices, the intoxicating scent of alien flowers luring our heroes to their deaths, etc.

FICTION GUIDELINES

We accept submissions of short fiction 2,000 – 7,000 words and novelettes up to 15,000 words.

We are looking for brave works of speculative short fiction by authors from the African continent and diaspora that reject regressive ideas of blackness, respectability politics, and stereotype. Please submit your bravest, blackest, most difficult to sell stories to us. We want to read them.

We want stories that are well written, of high quality, and generally easy to read on a screen.

POETRY GUIDELINES

What we want in speculative poetry is verse that struggles, reveals, instructs, comforts, and fights back. We are looking for weird, complex, honest and challenging work with a clear speculative element from Black authors. You can check out this post from our Poetry Editor for more on what we’d like to see in your poetry.

Additionally, poetry submissions should be no more than 1,000 words.

GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES CLICK HERE

Pay: N/A

Deadline: Submit to their submission form by April 30, 2021. All submission details here: https://www.fiyahlitmag.com/submissions/#