DILIM Press incl. Anthology of Dark Fiction from the Philippine Diaspora: Open Submissions for Sakada Journal Gold Star Program Gold Star Free

When the sakadas first arrived in Honolulu aboard the S.S. Doric they brought their own stories, hopes, and dreams. Upon contact with local culture, history, and norms, our Filipino diaspora expanded even more: DILIM Press commemorates their legacy in this proposed collection.

We seek to illuminate the lives of the contract migrant and seasonal farm workers, primarily from the Visayas and Ilocos regions, who were recruited/compelled to leave their homes to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations. Please share your stories, creative essays, poems, and flash fiction for collection into a commemorative journal to be published in December 2027.

Deadline: December 20, 2026 Sakada Day, marking the 120th anniversary of the arrival of the first Filipino plantation workers on the islands.

Guidelines:
1) We do not use nor review any work generated by Artificial Intelligence.

2) The journal explores both darker themes including interiority, suffering and corruption, and decay, as well as more hopeful themes such as connections across time and space, and belief in otherworldly elements and divine guidance. We welcome any true tales of cryptids or supernatural elements where characters find meaning or receive a message through contact with the unknown.

3) We would love to read stories and poems inspired by actual tales told to authors, or stories heard from family lore and legend.

4) We seek prose, flash fiction, and poems, and will also evaluate creative non-fiction.

5) Contributing authors receive .03 per word and one copy of a professionally-designed, edited, and produced softcover journal.

Please share this call widely.