NonBinary Review Zoetic Press Gold Star Program Gold Star

IMPORTANT: We’re looking for speculative work. If you’re not sure what that means, here’s our definition.

Zoetic Press's award-winning themed lit journal is published quarterly. Each issue revolves around a specific theme, but we're asking contributors to go beyond the old familiar media tropes - we want speculative work that looks at our theme from unexpected angles. We're looking for work we can read with our whole body - work that gives us goosebumps, makes us see the world differently, has the tang of authenticity, makes us sit up and listen, and smells like....something. This analogy got out of hand. What we're saying is that we're not looking for re-hashes of images or stories we've read before. We want contributors to explore every facet of our themes, really getting in between the cracks, in the corners, all the forgotten places that no one ever thinks to explore. We want to read work that makes us think "I never would have thought of this, and yet, it's so fitting!"

What we're NOT looking for is work that centers violence, rape, misogyny, racism, ableism, or degrading stereotypes of any kind. We know you're not that kind of writer, but we thought it should be said.

Some caveats:

Each issue of NonBinary Review will be open for submissions for ONE MONTH - see the individual calls for deadlines. That said, we have a limit of 30 pieces per issue. If we meet our acceptance limit before the end of the month, submissions will be closed early.
NonBinary Review accepts reprints, but we do ask for previous publication details so they can be credited.
Please ensure that you are submitting to the correct category, as we have different editing teams for each. Submissions sent to the wrong category (e.g., poetry submissions sent to the prose category) will be declined.
If your work has recently been accepted for publication in NonBinary Review, we will not consider any submissions from you for the next TWO ISSUES (e.g., if we accepted your work for Issue #1, we will not consider your work again until Issue #4.)

Our pay schedule:

Prose submissions (for which we pay 1¢ per word) should be 3000 words or fewer in length, double-spaced in 12pt Times New Roman font.
Poetry submissions (for which we pay a $10 flat fee) should include no more than 3 poems, each of which may be up to 3 pages in length. Poetry should be single-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman. Please include each poem as a separate file.
Art submissions (for which we pay a $25 flat fee) should include no more than 5 pieces. Each piece should be at least 300dpi, and at least 600 pixels on its smallest side. Any piece chosen for cover art will pay $50. We do not accept any submission that consists of links to an artist's website.

IMPORTANT NOTICE
Zoetic Press does not accept AI generated content. If our editors judge that your content is AI-generated, it will be declined.

Issue #46: Metamorphosis Free Tip Jar Option Open

Every single thing, from the universe to the quantum world, is in a state of flux. New to old, alive to dead, light to dark, rocks to sand, trees to paper...Each individual human experiences constant changes, both physical and mental, that affect how we view ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes, change is only apparent from outside, and from exactly the right perspective. The vase that becomes two faces. The laughing man that becomes a crying man when seen upside down. The collection of garbage that becomes two birds flying if you take three steps to the right.

We don't want caterpillar-to-butterfly kinds of metamorphoses. We want caterpillar to Lucille Ball's hairdresser; plasma cloud to extra large pizza with everything; shy, introverted genius to sleek black plastic cube that sits on the kitchen counter, running your life and making barely audible, sarcastic comments. We want the kinds of change that no one could have foreseen, that no one would even have thought possible.

We aren't looking for "I was an ugly, unpopular loser as a child, but now I'm Miss America" stories, or "I took a thing someone threw away and made something cool out of it" stories. No "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect," or "I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms," since Kafka and Ovid got there before you.

Fiction is limited to 3000 words, and poetry to 50 lines per poem.

Submit

Issue #45: Films Quota Met

Quota Met! This call has met its submission cap for this submission period.

IMPORTANT: We’re looking for speculative work. If you’re not sure what that means, here’s our definition.

We want your stories, poems and art that roll like credits and glow like an old cinema screen at midnight. We want pieces that feel like a perfect final scene, that smell of popcorn and spilt soda, that echo just before the lights go down.

Send us the deep cuts, the stories that explore how film shapes us, how it rewrites our memories and how it turns our lives into something a little more cinematic. We want the uncomfortable stuff. The speculative edge where cinema becomes something stranger— prophecy, haunting, technology, myth.

Take us to dark drive-ins, projection rooms at the end of the world and endless marathons on rainy afternoons. Let your work flicker between frames, blur reality and fiction, and leave us wondering if we are still in the theatre long after the credits roll.

We seriously do NOT want movie reviews, fan fiction, scripts, celebrity gossip, or personal essays. No Letterboxd take, "I love this movie because it made me happy" or "Did you know Titanic is fiction?"

Send us your most raw, light that projector. Let it run

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