[ s o f t n e s s ]

call for work : :  2017 publication

In late 2017, MIEL (miel-books.com) will publish an anthology of writing on [ S O F T N E S S ], edited by Margaret Patton Chapman and Éireann Lorsung. The editors are seeking text or image-text in all forms—prose, poetry, fragments, hybrid or null forms, incomplete objects, notes—that explores, rests within, arises from, or occupies the space of the [ S O F T ].

Writers of color, queer writers, trans writers, women writers, writers with disabilities are all especially encouraged to send work.

– – –

What is [ S O F T N E S S ], for the purposes of this anthology?

[ S O F T N E S S ] is that which is denigrated by the Serious. [ S O F T N E S S ] is relegated to the sidelines of Importance. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the invisible work that holds up the Visible: care labor, reproductive labor, underpaid and feminized labor in all forms. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the experience of being the only [ ] in the room but being forbidden to mention it. [ S O F T N E S S ] is that which is Other(ed): the feminine, the abject, the discarded, the penetrable. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the body. [ S O F T N E S S ] is affect and emotion as modes of knowing the world. [ S O F T N E S S ] is indeterminacy or the refusal to state precisely what or who one is. [ S O F T N E S S ] is “don’t take it personally” taken personally. [ S O F T N E S S ] is “why are you getting emotional”: well, why? [ S O F T N E S S ] is hysteria. [ S O F T N E S S ] is (the necessity of) the frivolous. [ S O F T N E S S ] is sinus pressure before tears. [ S O F T N E S S ] is “decorative arts”. [ S O F T N E S S ] is sentimentality. [ S O F T N E S S ] is non- or anti-linear. [ S O F T N E S S ] resists the idea that the intellect can be narrowly delineated, or that such a narrowly delineated intellect is the only way of knowing the world. [ S O F T N E S S ] is resistance to the rubric of (authorial) ownership. [ S O F T N E S S ] is anonymity. [ S O F T N E S S ] is guts. [ S O F T N E S S ] the refusal of authority, including one’s own. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the intuitive, the sensed, the felt: texture that is more than surface. [ S O F T N E S S ] is what gets dismissed when agendas are made. [ S O F T N E S S ] is accident. [ S O F T N E S S ] is belief. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the color pink. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the interior. [ S O F T N E S S ] is biologic. [ S O F T N E S S ] is network/plane/underground root system. [ S O F T N E S S ] is the knowledge that comes from working in a garden, a classroom, a kitchen, a corner. [ S O F T N E S S ] smells and touches. [ S O F T N E S S ] might be a way of understanding your life when other modes leave you out, fail your interior experience, or prove, even momentarily, insufficient, and [ S O F T N E S S ] pushes against the tacit expectation that one’s experiences find plenitude of expression in the limited languages and genres which receive authorization in the form of being taken seriously.

We are interested in reading work that talks about and/or enacts [ S O F T N E S S ] as a way of being in the world: [ S O F T N E S S ] as ethics, aesthetics, politics, pedagogy, strategy…

 

Further information

Publication details:

• The anthology will be published in black and white; images are thus welcome but somewhat limited by our format. Individual authors are responsible for demonstrating that they have obtained permission to reproduce any images in their texts.
• Work will be read from September 15 2015 until February 1 2016.
• Responses to work will be sent in March and April 2016.
• All work will be subject to editorial suggestions or excerpting.
• An autumn 2017 publication date is anticipated, but this timeline is subject to change depending on financial and other circumstances.
• The anthology will be published in an initial run of up to 1000 copies.Financial details:
• There is no reading fee.
• Once the contents of [ S O F T N E S S ] have been confirmed, we will launch a crowdfunding initiative to pay honoraria to all writers involved, and to pay for the printing and distribution of the anthology. 
• In addition to an honorarium, writers will receive two copies of the anthology.

Guidelines

We will accept all forms of text, including handwritten fragments or notes to be reproduced as images (black/white). We reserve the right to excerpt work.

Previously published work is acceptable as long as the writer holds the rights to republish and/or the original publication or press will allow us to reprint without a fee.

Collaborative work is welcome—just include details of all authors.

Please follow the below guidelines—they will make it easier for us to keep track of your work and to work with it ourselves, if it is selected for publication. You may send work in multiple forms, but please make separate submissions.

Prose/hybrid/typeset fragments:

• Please send one piece only
• Word limit: 5500 words
• Title files with your last name + prose (Smith-Prose.pdf)
• Send two files: RTF (text only) and PDF (text + images, if applicable)
• Please include the following in a coversheet: Name, postal address, email address, 100-word bio.

Notes/fragments (handwritten):

• Please send up to three images only
• Send low-resolution images now; we will ask for high-res if necessary
• Title files with your last name + fragments (Smith-Fragments.pdf)
• Send all images in one multi-page PDF file
• Please include the following in a coversheet: Name, postal address, email address, 100-word bio.

Poetry/hybrid work:

• Please send up to eight poems/objects in one document
• Page limit: 25 pages
• Title files with your last name + poems (Smith-Poems.pdf)
• Send two files: RTF (text only) and PDF (text + images, if applicable)
• Please include the following in a coversheet: Name, postal address, email address, 100-word bio.

Other images (for black/white printing):

• Please send up to three images only
• Send low-resolution images now; we will ask for high-res if necessary
• Title files with your last name + images (Smith-Images.pdf)
• Send all images in one multi-page PDF file
• Please include the following in a coversheet: Name, postal address, email address, 100-word bio.