We are currently open for submissions

Deadline: January 5, 2014.

We are accepting submissions for the Margaret Taylor-Burroughs Award (see below for more information) as well as open call submissions.

Kinfolks: a journal of black expression is dedicated to thinking about blackness in its infinite permutations by publishing the work of established and emerging black artists. Started in 2013 by a small collective of friends old and new, the journal’s ethos is centered around the notion that the culture(s) of Africa and the African Diaspora provide us with models of collectivity, commonality, and kinship that have been and will be central to the story of our world. Thus, we are interested in publishing poetry, photography, essays (personal, video, narrative, lyric, etc.), literary criticism, art criticism, reviews, extended meditations, flash fiction, and visual art that are a part of the continuing conversation about and around blackness. Please carefully review the guidelines below before submitting.

• We cannot accept work that has been published elsewhere, including on blogs or personal websites. We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your work is accepted elsewhere, please contact us immediately.
• Use the “Cover Letter / Biography” field of the online submissions form to include a cover letter, in which you should tell us a bit about yourself. Be sure to also include the title of each piece in your cover letter.
• Our editors review submissions blindly. Therefore, please do not include your name or contact information in the body of your submission document or in the title field of the submissions manager.
• Please carefully read the guidelines below before submitting. If you have questions or would like to send us a book to potentially review, please contact us at: editor [[[at]]]  kinfolksquarterly [[[dot]]] com. Please note that we do not accept any submissions via email.

Poetry
Include 3-5 poems at a time in one .doc or .docx file. Your name should not appear anywhere on the document.

Visual Art /Photographs
Include 1-3 pieces as individual files. All art submissions must be attached as high-resolution .jpg files (at least 300 dpi). Label each file with the title of the individual piece, and list the titles in your cover letter, as well.

Criticism/Essays/Reviews
Please submit 1-3 pieces as individual .doc or .docx files; each should be no longer than 1500 words.  Do not submit .pdf files. Reviewed books and films must have been released within the last 12 months. Reviewed exhibitions and performances must have taken place within the last 6 months.

Fiction
One piece per submission; limit 5,000 words of any style. Submit as individual .doc or .docx files. Novel excerpts are fine if the piece stands on its own without additional context.

It is our pleasure to announce The Margaret Taylor-Burroughs Awards. Every year, the award will be given in the categories of poetry, fiction, nonfiction and visual arts for works that best reflect the journal’s commitment to celebrating blackness “in its infinite permutations.” We are in search of art that– like the work of Taylor-Burroughs in her creative, activist, and personal legacy– pushes boundaries, opens conversation, and asserts life where some might claim there is no life to be found. This cycle, we will be giving an award in the poetry category. The award consists of a cash prize of $500 dollars and publication in the journal.

Camille Dungy will be our contest judge for this cycle. Dungy is author of Smith Blue (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), winner of the 2010 Crab Orchard Open Book Prize, Suck on the Marrow (Red Hen Press, 2010), and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Red Hen Press, 2006). Dungy is editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (UGA, 2009), co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (Persea, 2009), and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (University of Michigan Press, 2006). Dungy has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Cave Canem, the Dana Award, and Bread Loaf. She is a two-time recipient of the Northern California Book Award (2010 and 2011), a Silver Medal Winner in the California Book Award (2011), and a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee (2010 and 2011). She was a 2011 finalist for the Balcones Prize, and her books have been shortlisted for the 2011 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, the PEN Center USA 2007 Literary Award, and the Library of Virginia 2007 Literary Award. Recently a Professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University, Dungy is now a Professor in the English Department at Colorado State University.