wHAT WE LIKE

Your work may deal with any subject matter. While we believe in art as activism, we also believe black women deserve the freedom to make art simply for art’s sake. We pride ourselves on our eclecticism, and do not confine our contributors to any particular aesthetic or theme. (That said, we’re not quite the platform for genre fiction. We are, however, open to literary fiction with surreal or speculative elements.) Your submission is most likely to resonate with us if your work can be described as any of the following:

  • emotionally vulnerable

  • formally inventive

  • surreal

  • vivid

  • visceral

  • subtle

  • elegant in craft

  • in conversation with other black women’s work

Please note that these are only loose guidelines. You can’t read our minds, so don’t self-reject. We look forward to reading your work!

SubMission Guidelines

The Saartjie Journal releases pieces on a rolling basis. We accept unsolicited submissions of original poems, short stories, visual art and hybrid pieces by black women artists and writers. Black nonbinary people who identify with womanhood are welcome to submit. While we may feature previously published pieces in select cases, as a general rule we only consider previously unpublished work. By “previously unpublished”, we mean work which has not been curated in any other literary journal, anthology or collection, whether in print or online. However, work showcased on your personal blog or social media account is acceptable.

We don’t accept novel extracts, essays, reviews or translations. We’re only able to accept English language submissions at the moment, but hope to accept submissions in other languages in the future. Simultaneous submissions are permitted and encouraged, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

Email all submissions to submissions@saartjiejournal.org. You may submit multiple genres at a time. Present all written submissions in one document per genre and include your name and email on each page. Please include the title(s) and genre(s) of your submissions in the subject line and a brief cover letter and third-person biography in the body, mentioning social media handles, previously published work, awards and honours, if applicable. Refer to the following template for further guidance:

[Subject] Short Story Submission: Recitatif; Poetry Submission: Eve Remembering, The Perfect Ease of Grain

Dear Editors,

I am sending one short story entitled “Recitatif”, and two poems entitled “Eve Remembering” and “The Perfect Ease of Grain” for your consideration.

Thank you for taking the time to read my work.

Kind regards,

Toni Morrison

Bio:

Toni Morrison is a writer from Lorain, Ohio. She is the author of Beloved (Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1987), The Bluest Eye (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), and much more. She is the winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.

For the sake of transparency, The Saartjie Journal is not a business. We are an entirely self-funded, not-for-profit passion project and we neither charge for submissions nor pay contributors. However, we do our best to support our contributors on social media and in any way we can. All pieces are considered for nomination for literary awards such as the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net Anthology. Your work remains yours, but we ask for first serial and non-exclusive archival rights. All rights revert to the writer or artist upon publication, but please mention us if your work is reprinted elsewhere.

We will notify you of a decision within 24 hours, often much sooner. Feel free to send a query if you haven’t received a response within that time. We don’t believe in form rejections and will give a personalised response to every submission. If your submission isn’t successful, please don’t hesitate to send us more work.

Genre specific guidelines are as follows:

POETRY

You may submit a maximum of six poems per submission as a Microsoft Word document. If your piece has complex formatting, you may send a PDF file in addition to the Word document.

SHORT FICTION

Short stories must be between 1,500 and 6,000 words and are limited to one story per author. Short story submissions must be sent as a Microsoft Word document.

FLASH FICTION

Submit up to three flash fiction pieces of under 1,500 words each. Flash fiction pieces must be sent as a Microsoft Word Document.

VISUAL ART

We accept traditional and digital paintings and illustrations, photography and photographs of three-dimensional art. You may submit a maximum of three artworks per issue in JPEG or PNG format.

HYBRID/OTHER

We’re open to forms that may fall between or outside of the aforementioned categories. We accept hybrid and other submissions under 6,000 words, sent as a Word document, JPEG or PNG file. If you wish, you may send an additional PDF file for the sake of maintaining complex formatting.