SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Hey, beloved tribe of Jewish writers, artists and allies:

Please help us promote your work.

Here's how:

We plan to feature a different writer or Jewish creator in Judith Magazine at least 3 times a week. And if you’d like to be one of them, please take note of the following info!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

First, if you’d like to submit poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, please submit to the relevant editor!

For poetry, please send to Susan Comninos at slcomninos@gmail.com.

For fiction, please send to David Michael Slater at david@davidmichaelslater.com.

For non-fiction, please send to Howard Lovy at howard@howardlovy.com.

For kidlit, please send to Erica Lyons at elyonshk@gmail.com.

The ideas I have for the magazine may evolve over time, but for right now, here's what I envision for each writer's showcase. Please include all the following elements in your submissions:

1. The most immediate, riveting, tantalizing excerpt you can find of your work. If you're a novelist, find a passage that hooks the reader and sings. You get the idea. The excerpt can be up to 5000 words, but doesn't have to come anywhere near that word count.

2. For Poetry: We plan to put out special folios, featuring a wide range of voices on events, themes and the course of the Jewish year. Please check here and on social media for timely calls to submit. We will intersperse these with features featuring the poetry of a single poet.

   To submit to a folio: Please send 1-5 of your poems, new or previously published, to which you hold all rights. (When you submit to a folio, there’s no need to send pictures, a bio or answers to the interview questions.) Note: If you’ve been a featured poet, please wait roughly three months to submit to a folio, and one year before requesting another showcase. Any questions? Just ask.

   To submit for a poet feature (yes, this includes you!): You do not need to be a prizewinning or widely published poet to warrant a feature. Just send your best, most polished work. Please send eight poems, one author photo, your complete bio, a link to your most recent book, and answers to the interview questions below.

   We look forward to reading your work!

3. Your bio (a paragraph)

4. Your favorite photo of yourself

5. If appropriate, a few potential artistic images to accompany your work (with attribution if it's original art). This magazine will be writer-centric but I'd love to promote Jewish artists too in this incidental way if it happens to work. If you don't have images you want or like to accompany your work, I might suggest some. No images will accompany your work without your approval. Please note: our aesthetic is lush and colorful, with vivid jewel tones the ideal.

6. If your work can be bought at this time, please provide relevant links so readers can purchase immediately. If you’re sending along artwork, possibly done by friends or other living artists, we are happy to promote traffic to their sites by posting their webpages, galleries or Etsy shops in the Art Notes.

7. And finally, there's a tiny interview template I'd love for you to complete. This section focuses on tiny, everyday pleasures, because Judaism is so much about this world, and daily life, and I want to highlight the joyful, beautiful aspects of being in this world and being Jewish. We have so much suffering to endure. So much persecution, discrimination, hatred, darkness, war, grief, heartbreak. So to me it's deeply essential to have the light and the joy alongside it.
   
   Here are the two questions and an idea of how you might approach them:
   
   What are five tiny delights that lift your spirits and make you happy?
   
   1. Drinking coffee on the porch during a hard rain
   
   2. Local squirrels and birds descending on our front yard after I've scattered seeds for them
   
   3. Collecting driftwood and sea glass on the beach
   
   4. The scent of Dragon Pearl Jasmine tea
   
   5. The periwinkle shade of fresh snow at twilight
   
   What are five tiny JEWISH delights that lift your spirits and make you happy?
   
   1. The beauty of the Havdalah ritual: the braided, multi-wicked candle and the spicebox
   
   2. The sight of starlings nesting in the Western Wall
   
   3. The aroma of baking challah
   
   4. Seeing Jewish men wrapped in their blue and white tallit at shul
   
   5. The haunting strains of the Unetaneh Tokef

Try to make your tiny delights as immediate and evocative as possible. HaShem is in the details! Draw on as many senses as you can when filling out these forms.

ALL GENRES ARE WELCOME! As we speak, I’m in conversation with a designated editor who would like to build out a genre-centric (sci-fi, fantasy, crime, horror, romance, etc.) category in the magazine.

I’m also in conversation with a potential kidlit editor.

It’s our intention to add those categories as soon as possible.

SUBMISSIONS CAN START IMMEDIATELY and we intend to accept them year-round.

Whenever publishing your showcase can coincide with your book release, we will strive to time it to your advantage. If relevant, please include that info in your submission.

TO SUBMIT: put JUDITH MAGAZINE in the subject heading of your email, the name you wish to publish under, and the genre of your submission.

An example of a subject heading: JUDITH MAGAZINE, Elissa Wald, non-fiction.

We can't wait to read, celebrate and promote the hell out of your work.

Am Yisrael Chai!

Much love,

Elissa