Submission Guidelines

General Information

Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature is a digital, Open Access, biannual journal, published in summer and winter of each year. For consideration of your creative work, please submit content in accordance with our detailed guidelines as described below and linked above. Please feel free to let us know if you have any questions. We are always happy to receive queries at wordgathering@syr.edu.

Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue.

To submit your creative work to Wordgathering, please send an email to wordgathering@syr.edu with the subject line “Submission: [genre].” In your email message, include a short introductory note with a brief bio, your name, a physical address or location, and an email address. Detailed genre guidelines are below as well as linked above. 

Submissions to Wordgathering are free. Publication in Wordgathering is also free. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to compensate contributors at this time. If this situation changes in the future, our digital platform will reflect any updates.

While we are deeply committed to poetry, Wordgathering also accepts short essays and short works of creative nonfiction (CNF), flash memoir, fiction, excerpts, and drama, as well as art, photography, comics, short videos, music, and suggested books for potential review. Further information about these genres’ guidelines can be found below and are linked above.

We also publish manifestos, interviews, and responses, and are open to considering other genres. Responses provide writers and artists with the opportunity to address one another, reflecting on prior Wordgathering publications. Further details regarding submitting manifestos, interviews, and responses can be found below and are linked above.

A maximum of two prose pieces (including short essays, creative nonfiction, flash memoir, fiction, excerpts, drama, written manifestos, book reviews, interviews, and responses) may be submitted during each reading period. A maximum of five poems may be submitted during each reading period. A maximum of five pieces of multi-media content (including art, photography, short videos, comics, music/audio content, and multi-media manifestos) may be submitted during each reading period.

You are welcome to submit work in prose, poetry, and/or multi-media content (that is, in one, two, or three genres or creative areas) during each submissions review “window,” providing you do not exceed the maximum number of submissions permitted in each individual genre as outlined here.

As noted, please be sure to submit any content in accordance with our detailed guidelines below and as linked above, depending upon the genre(s) or type(s) of your submission(s). Please only send any prose submission after you have received a confirmation response to your initial prose query indicating that you are welcome to submit your prose piece to us for consideration. While poetry and multi-media content do not require queries in advance of submissions, please be sure that your submissions in these creative areas are in alignment with the goals of our journal before you proceed. Further information about all of these genres and creative areas is below and linked above.

In June 2020, Wordgathering began publishing work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license, which allows readers to view/access, download, and share the work (with proper attribution), but nothing else, without permission of the creator; all other rights remain with the creator. Please visit Frequently Asked Questions about Open Access, our Creative Commons license, and Fair Use for more information. If you have questions or concerns about this license, please contact us at wordgathering@syr.edu.

As noted in About Us, our aim is to highlight disability literature and the creative arts, and to do so in accessible ways. Therefore, we seek out work pertaining to disability experiences and cultures. Importantly, we privilege publishing work by writers and other creative artists with disabilities and present this work in accessible formats.   

Since there are many different kinds and varied experiences of physical, cognitive, intellectual, emotional, psychological, reading, and other disabilities, we adopt a “cross-disabilities” perspective in our publication philosophy and practices. D/deaf, D/disabled, Crip, Mad, Chronically Ill, Spoonie, Sick, and Neurodivergent (including Autistic) writers and creative artists are especially encouraged to submit their work for publication consideration. We unequivocally support and welcome the creative work of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, young, elder, and working-class writers and artists, and those who are affected by carceral systems.

We will not tolerate hate speech or oppressive language and representations, of any kind, in submissions. We will not review submissions that objectify disabled or other people. However, if your work critiques hate speech, objectification, or oppression as part of the work’s stated purpose, and if that approach and intention have been made clear, we will review your work. Wordgathering is unlikely to publish work that is intended primarily to be inspirational, rehabilitative, or therapeutic. Work about “overcoming” disability is also unlikely to be published.

Our ongoing, special features—Reading Loop and Gatherer’s Blog—are by invitation only. Reading Loop is a close reading or discussion by a contributor; Gatherer’s Blog provides emergent as well as seasoned writers with opportunities to reflect upon aspects of their own writing processes. 

We prefer considering previously unpublished work. If you send us previously published work, you will be required to confirm that you have retained the rights to republish your work with Wordgathering. If you have questions, please send an email with the subject line “Rights and Permissions” to wordgathering@syr.edu.

We accept simultaneous submissions. Please notify us as soon as possible if all or part of your simultaneous submission has been accepted elsewhere so that we can congratulate you. If you wish for your work accepted elsewhere to remain in our reviews queue, we will accommodate your request–as long as you can confirm that you have retained the rights to reprint your work.

Our editorial team is eager to review your submissions. We are all writers and artists who have gone through the submission process, many times, and we know how challenging this process can be. As we review your work and communicate with you with kindness, we ask that you share your work and communicate with us with kindness, as well—trusting that we will do our very best, throughout the process. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us at wordgathering@syr.edu, if you have any questions or concerns about our submission guidelines or any aspects of the review process. 

As noted above, in order to submit to Wordgathering, please send an email to wordgathering@syr.edu with the subject line “Submission: [genre].” In your email message, include a short introductory note with a brief bio, your name, a physical address or location, and an email address. 

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File Formats for Submissions:

  • Textual: .docx, .doc, .rtf, or .txt (please use Arial or Times New Roman, and put multiple poems in one file)
  • Two-dimensional visual arts (including photography and comics): .jpg or .png
  • Video: .mp4
  • Music and other audio: .mp3

For video, audio, and multimedia work, you are also welcome to send a link to a private online upload of your full submission (e.g., a private YouTube channel link).

If you include two-dimensional visual arts, video, music or other audio as an accompaniment to any textual submission, please refer to the guidelines below regarding descriptive text and captioning.

If you have any questions or concerns, or require adaptations and/or accommodations in formatting or submitting your work, please email us at wordgathering@syr.edu. 

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Poetry

Poets with disabilities/disabled poets are welcome to submit up to five poems with a maximum of 75 lines each on any topic or theme during each reading period. Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue.

For topics and themes unrelated to disability, Wordgathering editors will ask authors to confirm that they have a disability and/or identify as D/deaf, D/disabled, Crip, Mad, Chronically Ill, Spoonie, Sick, or Neurodivergent (including Autistic) in one or more ways. Nondisabled poets must submit work that relates in some way to disability. Nondisabled poets are welcome to submit up to five poems of a maximum of 75 lines each during each reading period.

Please submit written textual work in a single attachment. Please refer to file formats, above.

If poetry submitted in a written textual format is available as an audio file, please indicate that information in the introductory note. Upon acceptance, poets will be asked to either provide an audio file of their poem(s) or to grant permission for Wordgathering staff to audio record their written textual work. Please refer to file formats, above.

Poets are welcome to submit spoken word, slam, visual image-informed, and video poetry (including in American Sign Language and other Sign Languages). Please refer to file formats, above, and guidelines, below. Linked here are some image and audio description resources, courtesy of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute.

Please include an accompanying full transcript / written text file for any spoken word or slam poetry that is shared in audio format. Please refer to file formats, above.

Poets submitting “blackout” or other visual image-informed works are expected to provide image descriptions of the content. One among several ways to make “blackout” poetry more accessible in an accompanying image description is to indicate the written text, then use [blackout] when needed, then continue to indicate the written text, making the line breaks clear. Linked here are some image and audio description resources, courtesy of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute.

All video content must be closed captioned in English (users should be able to turn captions on or off). We do not accept automatic captioning.

If you are uncertain whether visual content needs to be described textually, please indicate your question in your submission email. To describe visual content in a video, whenever possible, please use an embedded descriptive audio track in English (that users can turn on or off) with accompanying written text, or include a supplemental audio track in English with accompanying written text. Linked here are some image and audio description resources, courtesy of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute.

Editors reserve the right to revise or edit descriptive text, transcripts, and captioning, in consultation with the creators submitting their work.

Please note that formatting and styles available and as displayed on our WordPress interface may not be exact reflections of uniquely spaced and formatted poems.  We will do our very best to accommodate writers’ poetic conventions and specialized styles, working within our WordPress site’s parameters. 

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Short Essays, Creative Nonfiction (CNF), Flash Memoir, Fiction, Excerpts, and Drama

A maximum of two prose pieces (including short essays, creative nonfiction, flash memoir, fiction, excerpts, and drama) may be submitted during each reading period. Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue. Writers interested in submitting short essays, creative nonfiction (CNF), flash memoir, fiction, excerpts, or drama should first send a query to wordgathering@syr.edu describing the proposed piece and how it relates to disability literature. Please submit work only after receiving editorial confirmation regarding submission(s).

Writers with disabilities/disabled writers are welcome to submit work on any topic or theme. For topics and themes unrelated to disability, Wordgathering editors will ask authors to confirm that they have a disability and/or identify as D/deaf, D/disabled, Crip, Mad, Chronically Ill, Spoonie, Sick, or Neurodivergent (including Autistic) in one or more ways. Nondisabled writers must submit work that relates in some way to disability.

Short essays, creative nonfiction (CNF), fiction, excerpts, and drama should be a maximum of 2500 words; flash memoir should be a maximum of 1000 words. All submissions should in some way contribute to disability literature (philosophically and/or through your personal experience as a writer with a disability).

Please refer to file formats, above. Whenever possible, prose that utilizes citations should be submitted using MLA formatting.

The editors strongly recommend that potential contributors read past work in Wordgathering for examples of the kinds of work Wordgathering publishes. 

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Art, Photography, Short Video, Comics, and Music/Audio Content

A maximum of five pieces of multi-media content (including art, photography, short videos, comics, and music/audio content) may be submitted during each reading period. Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue. Artists and creators with disabilities/disabled artists and creators are welcome to submit work on any topic or theme. For topics and themes unrelated to disability, Wordgathering editors will ask artists and creators to confirm that they have a disability and/or identify as D/deaf, D/disabled, Crip, Mad, Chronically Ill, Spoonie, Sick, or Neurodivergent (including Autistic) in one or more ways. Nondisabled artists and creators must submit work that relates in some way to disability.

Each submission of art, photography, short video, comics, or music/audio must be accompanied by a proposed descriptive text. Please refer to file formats, above.

Short video content must be closed captioned in English (users should be able to turn captions on or off). We do not accept automatic captioning. Please include an accompanying full transcript file. 

If you are uncertain whether visual content needs to be described textually, please indicate your question in your submission email. To describe visual content in a video, whenever possible, please use an embedded descriptive audio track in English (that users can turn on or off) with accompanying written text, or include a supplemental audio track in English with accompanying written text.

Editors reserve the right to revise or edit descriptive text, transcripts, and captioning, in consultation with the creators submitting their work.

Linked here are some image and audio description resources, courtesy of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute.

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Manifestos

Wordgathering is open to manifestos that make contributions to disability literature, arts, culture, and education. A maximum of two written manifestos or five multi-media manifestos may be submitted during each reading period. Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue. Writers and other creatives who are interested in submitting a manifesto for publication consideration should first send a query to wordgathering@syr.edu describing the proposed manifesto, with a summary of its subject, genre, and medium. File formats and multi-media accessibility information are included above. Please submit manifestos only after receiving editorial confirmation regarding submission(s).

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Book Reviews

Wordgathering includes reviews of poetry, fiction, memoir, and drama written by disabled writers, as well as books in disability studies related to literature and the arts. The editors strongly recommend that potential book reviewers read Wordgathering’s previously published book reviews in order to understand our expectations and stylistic conventions, as well as the journal’s orientation toward disability poetry, literature, arts, and culture. 

Writers and artists who would like their works reviewed or who wish to review others’ works should first send a query to wordgathering@syr.edu. The query should include a statement that explains how the work is part of or contributes in some way to disability literature and the arts. For those wishing to submit book reviews of others’ works in Wordgathering, a maximum of two book reviews may be submitted for consideration during each reading period. Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue. Please submit book review(s) only after receiving editorial confirmation regarding submission(s). 

Wordgathering is unlikely to review books that are intended primarily to be inspirational, rehabilitative, or therapeutic. Books about “overcoming” disability are also unlikely to be reviewed. In the event that a review copy is received, and it is discovered, thereafter, that the book’s approach is inconsistent with the journal’s overall orientation toward disability poetry, literature, arts, and culture, the book will not be reviewed. Please note, as well, that even if a book’s approach is consistent with the journal’s overall orientation, it is not possible to review every book for which a query is received. If a review cannot or will not be completed (for whatever reasons), the person who sent the query will be notified, as soon as possible.

As Wordgathering has grown, the number of requests that we receive for book reviews has likewise grown. Thank you in advance for your patience as we manage our often-lengthy book reviews “queue.” We aim to be in solidarity with disabled writers and other disabled creatives while working with a relatively small editorial team and reviewers’ “pool.”

If you would like to become a potentially “frequent flyer” book reviewer for Wordgathering, thereby joining our (of course, accessible) reviewers’ “pool,” please reach out to us at wordgathering@syr.edu with a short summary of your areas of interest and expertise, a short statement of how you understand yourself and your writing to be in alignment with the journal’s goals, and a short bio, and we will be in touch with you as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your interest and commitment. 

Please refer to file formats, above, with respect to textual and other submission formats.

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Interviews and Responses

We include interviews and responses in the journal and welcome readers’ suggestions and contributions. Interviews may be 1:1 or group-based. As noted above, responses provide writers and artists with the opportunity to address one another, reflecting on prior Wordgathering publications. Writers interested in submitting interviews and/or responses should first send a query to wordgathering@syr.edu describing the proposed piece and how it relates to disability literature, arts, and culture. For those wishing to publish interviews and/or responses in Wordgathering, a maximum of two works may be submitted for consideration during each reading period. Our reading periods or submissions review “windows” are March 1 to May 1 for the summer issue and September 1 to November 1 for the winter issue. Please submit interviews and/or responses only after receiving editorial confirmation regarding submission(s). Please refer to file formats, above, with respect to textual and other submission formats.

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