Duende is currently open to submissions for our RITUAL theme issue (see below).

We will remain open year-long for submissions of Visual Art.

RITUAL

"The rituals where the writing

occurs are capable of connecting

us to all consciously enacted

ritualistic behavior from the

past and future.

To me it is the opposite of time

travel, it is the halting of

time, it is the collapsing of the

walls separating us from where we

have been, where we are going,

and beyond."

-CAConrad, from Poetry and Ritual, an essay in verse 

When the editors decided to read for an issue focused on Ritual, we could scarcely have imagined the extent to which the rituals of our lives would be disrupted, or rearranged, because of the Covid-19 outbreak. We are now dealing with more than a loss-state, a grief-state. We have been forced into a new way of being—and as writers and artists, we need to respond to and examine these shifting rituals. 

With that in mind, we envision this curated space to be one of: 

• Mourning for the rituals we lost; 

• Celebration for the rituals established; 

• Examination of the mystic chords that continue to bind us as human beings; 

• Eco-ritual--both the ancient and new rituals; 

• Ritual-futurism--or the rituals we imagine our future will contain; 

• Labor rituals and the loss of the labor rituals; 

• Human contact as ritual, the loss of human contact as new ritual; 

• Rites--both in the spiritual-sense and social-sense; 

• Observance; and quite simply

• What we do. 

Please send us your best visual art, poetry, fiction, hybrid and nonfiction work on this theme between June 1 – June 30. 

We’re very excited to see how writers will respond to this emergent theme and share in the collective ritual of making. 

THE BRASS TACKS:

1)   We accept only these file formats for writing: doc, docx, and pdf. And for images: jpg or png. If you are concerned about formatting changes when your files are opened on different computers, please submit PDFs only.

2)   We ask you to send work in only one genre—considering “hybrid work” to be its own genre—per submission. Please place your submission into one file. (That is to say, if you are submitting five poems, then send them all in one document. If you are sending two poems and one short story, please submit twice, once in each genre. If you are submitting translations of three short stories, please place both the short stories and the original texts in one file. Label clearly, in English, the source texts.

3)   All submissions must be made via Submittable, no exceptions. We do accept simultaneous submissions. However, kindly drop us a message if your work is accepted elsewhere. Please message us directly in submittable, as opposed to emailing us. 

4)   We only accept work during our submissions windows.

5)   Please let us know why you have chosen to submit to Duende—we are delighted to make new friends—and how you heard about us. Please include a short bio, but know that, for us, it’s all about the writing.

6)   Submitting to Duende is free. We are grateful for the opportunity to review your work. We do not pay writers or artists for their work.

7)   We do not accept unsolicited book reviews. 

8)    Duende is a group of full-time undergraduate students, all volunteers, who live all over the United States. Our academic schedule is non-traditional and we meet face-to-face only once during each semester. Please be patient with us. We might need up to six months to reply to your submission. If you haven’t heard from us in six months, please feel free to drop us an email and check in. Thank you!