Voiceworks is now open for submissions to issue 127 'Gleam'
Theme: Gleam
Supple wings, veined and iridescent—do they wink at you, tips curling over the top of toadstools from where their bearers peek at you, like a puzzle to be solved, like prey to be stolen from? They whisper behind cupped hands, the sound rushing to blow the strands off your neck. Lithe limbs, dusted with pearly moonlight, extend themselves closer, closer, close. You see the flecks in their eyes, green and phosphorescent, floating along the rims of their irises. They lift from the pupils, drifting through the air until they pause and hover over your lips. Open. Your mouth obeys and the flecks grace themselves on your tongue.
You are startled awake in the middle of the night, a pearlescent sphere of light floating within your skin. You can feel it in the softness of your lower belly, the spindly bone of your ankle, the slick pink muscle inside your mouth. You were dreaming that the moon had fallen. It was wedged amidst the muddy stream in the park behind your house. It tasted just like the coconut sprout you had devoured when you were eight—a pale yellow sponge, melting away even as you took another bite. The light is a frequent visitor, appearing sometimes in your throat when your mother sings in the car and hums in the kitchen, in the nape of your neck when your friend is braiding your hair in the oval at lunch, in your cheeks when your brother comes into your room just to leave half of his orange for you.
There is another light—as a child, your grandmother warned you to never follow it, but every new moon you saw her creep out and chase it. In the mornings after, there would be a glint in her eyes, the scent of iron and amaranth clinging to her skin, she’d feed you a viscous soup, holding out a silver spoon and you’d open your mouth and swallow without asking what it was.
The light that glimmers across your forehead like a sign from Someone—have you not thought of the cost of that light? There is an absence Somewhere, where that light used to be, where someone drew it out for you so you could see the way forward. That place has been so easily forgotten and there someone slips and drowns. Their body rots. The skin peels away to reveal milky bone so white it blinds.
~Thanks to EdCommers Shivani Prabhu and Tracy Hwang for the blurb~
Remember, you don’t have to stick to the theme! Our themes are a prompt more than anything else—a springboard to get the creative ideas flowing. Most of all, we just want good work.
Print Guidelines
Voiceworks accepts fiction, poetry, nonfiction, art and comics, but before you send your work our way, here are some rules:
We are only able to publish writers and artists who are under the age of 25 (that is, 24 and under) at the time of submission.
We only accept work by people living in Australia (including international students) or by Australians living overseas.
We only consider previously unpublished work.
Each category has its own submission page with specific guidelines, but here are the basics:
Fiction: send no more than two stories, each no more than 3,000 words.
Poetry: send no more than three poems, each no more than 100 lines. We recommend reading our poetry guide here before sending us your work.
Nonfiction: we recommend that you pitch your nonfiction work before sending it to us. Head here for advice on how to construct your pitch and write good nonfiction. For completed work, send no more than two pieces, each no more than 3,000 words.
Art and comics: please keep in mind, we print in duotone (only two colours of ink) and our page dimensions are 170 x 245 mm. We recommend you pitch your comics before sending them to us. For advice on how to pitch your comics, check out our handy guide here. Please send no more than three artworks or comics.
We encourage you to submit across genres, but please send us no more than four submissions in total (excluding comics and art).
Deadlines
Nonfiction pitches—Sunday 3 April, 11:59PM AEDT
Fiction, completed nonfiction and poetry—Sunday 17 April, 11:59PM AEST
Art, comics and comic pitches—Sunday 1 May, 11:59PM AEST
Rates of pay
$100 for written work and art
$150 for multi-page comics or suites of art
You’ll find further details and submission guidelines here. Please read the information carefully and contact Voiceworks Editor Adalya Nash Hussein if you have any questions or concerns.