Submit to Lorette C. Luzajic at theekphrasticreview@gmail.com.
Our Ekphrastic Mission
The Ekphrastic Review is committed to the growth, expansion, and practice of the art form of literary writing inspired or prompted by visual art.
We can no longer publish ekphrastic work inspired by other arts like cinema, dance, or music.
We define ekphrastic writing simply as "writing inspired by art." The piece can be an in-depth experience of the art work, or it can use the art as a starting point for expression. The connection to the artwork or artist can be subtle, or it can be central to the work.
Work that is not in some way ekphrastic will be deleted without being returned. We don't mean to be harsh but receive hundreds of submissions like this and it takes too much time to send a friendly reminder in every instance.
READING SCHEDULE: IMPORTANT INFORMATION
We read and respond to every submission we receive, and this takes a considerable amount of time even though we can only post a fraction of what we like. To handle the ever growing avalanche of submissions, we have carefully weighed our options, including reading fees, soliciting manuscripts instead of reading unsolicited works, membership submissions only, etc. These options could all help provide a solution for us but we don't like any of them, because they limit creativity and democracy. Our mission is to promote ekphrastic writing, the process as well as the resulting literary product. For these reasons, we are embarking instead on a receiving schedule, accepting submissions during alternate months only.
We WILL NOT accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
We WILL accept submissions in January, March, May, July, September, November.
WHAT TO INCLUDE
Include your work (one to five pieces, give or take, depending on length.)
Include your publishing name, and a bio.
Your work and bio must be finished. We will not make changes after your initial submission, or update your bio to include yesterday's publication credits. Do not send it if it isn't ready!
EDITS
We do not make extensive edits to anyone's work. We prefer to leave the voice and intention of the writer. We won't overhaul a piece to improve it or make it more like our editors' voice/s. Nor will we accept author changes or go back and forth. We do not have the time or budget or manpower to rewrite, change posts, and alter works after the fact of receipt. Your work will be posted 90% as is, with minimal editorial changes. Any changes will be simple typo corrections or extremely small changes for clarity, spelling, etc.
Any experimental spacing and margin may be reformatted. As a rule, we cannot encourage experimental formatting as it is impossible to post online.
Major changes or major corrections are rare, but if we want to make them, we will ask you, other than what is outlined above.
Ekphrastic Poetry
Submit one to five poems in the body of an email, with a cover letter and brief bio.
Any kind of poetry that responds to or explores or is inspired by a work of art or artist is eligible for consideration.
It is very difficult to use experimentally formatted poetry, even if we love it. We will consider it but understand that if we can't resolve a way to post it, we will have to return it. If we accept your poem, we will do our best to honour the spacing and format you have created, but computers have a mind of their own when translating data. If we fear the poem won't post true to its original, we may have to pass.
Please paste your poems in the body of the email. You can include a duplicate copy in PDF so that we can reference it for formatting or italics. Do not submit a PDF without including the poems in the body of the email. Word attachments are fine, too. The point is not to make difficult rules for you, but to make it easy for us to read the poems and to reference them correctly if we publish them.
We WILL NOT accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Prose
We love to see short stories and nonfiction prose of any kind. We are moved by beautiful language, insight, illumination, creativity, provocation, curiosity, contemplation, and witty repartee, not by tedious, stuffy academia or pretentious curatorial theory.
Brief is best. From 50 to 1500 words is ideal, but we will consider longer pieces that fit our diverse enthusiasms.
We WILL NOT accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Book Reviews/Author Interviews/Profiles/the Ekphrastic Experience
We want more articles that engage with ekphrastic books, features, author interviews or profiles, and articles about ekphrastic writing in general.
The subject matter must include and focus on ekphrastic writing. We are hesitant to use the words "book review" and are looking for literary prose about your experience with the ekphrastic writing you have read. We want literary, experiential, informative, funny, expressive, and insightful book reviews and author features, not utilitarian and uninspired, and not pedantic, academic criticism.
You can query your intentions to determine if the subject matter is right for us or to work out the best angle in advance.
200-1500 words is a good number to aim for, but we're flexible when there is cause to be.
We don't accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December. It is okay to query anytime.
Translations
We welcome the opportunity to publish more translations of ekphrastic writing, whether from English into another language, or from another language, into English. You must have permission to publish the original version of the poem you are translating.
We don't accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Reprints/ Simultaneous submissions
YES! SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS AND PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WRITING ARE WELCOME AND ENCOURAGED! Our objective is for poets and writers to be as widely read as possible, not to monopolize your work.
We don't accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Reading Fees
The Ekphrastic Review is free to anyone with Internet connection. We do not charge reading fees, never have and never will.
Payment
We cannot pay. Everyone here is a volunteer. Sorry.
Who Can Submit
We welcome submissions from anyone, anywhere.
Attachments
Word or any common sense document format is fine, but include your work in the body of the email as well in case we can't open it.
A pdf is great to check for italics and spacing intentions that might disappear in transmission, but make sure to include the work in the email body as well.
Response Time
We do our best to respond within eight weeks. This is not always possible.
Rights
We happily publish previously published work if you have the rights. We like to acknowledge prior publications.
You always own your work and we never do. You are free to use your own work anywhere, anytime, before, during, or after we publish it. We do appreciate it very much if you acknowledge The Ekphrastic Review when work we published appears elsewhere.
Information About Choosing Artwork
We consider poems and prose inspired by any visual artwork including paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, collages, graffiti, advertisements, posters, mixed media, and more.
The artist can be famous or obscure, ancient or living down your street, important or important only to you.
We don't censor your inspiration and want you to explore and discover all kinds of art. That said, it can be much more difficult to get permission for living artists' work than it is for old masters in the public domain. Intimidating and expensive processes can prove a barrier to getting your work up with the art. This is our worry and not yours, but do understand that good writing based on public domain or ubiquitously appearing artwork is easier to publish than good writing based on contemporary artworks.
That said, we very much want to promote living artists and to encourage ekphrastic writing that responds to the art of living artists. If the art you are writing about is someone you know or have contact with or access to contact with, you are most welcome to help us out by providing that connection. Any information you have can help make it easier for us.
There are times we accept a piece of writing and cannot get permission to use the artwork. In these cases, we substitute an image with an explanatory note and a link if possible to the source of inspiration.
Info on How to Include Artwork in Submission
Please include a link to the artwork or a low to moderate resolution jpeg attachment and organize the information in a way that makes it apparent what work goes with what poem or story.
Please include the title, artist, artist's nationality, and year of artwork creation. Example of preferred format for this information: Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez (Spain) 1656
Do not put artwork into Google Docs or Word document or pdf. It can skew the format of your writing and we cannot always extract the image anyhow. Use a jpeg or a link to the image.
Miscellaneous
We can no longer consider Rattle outtakes.
We are a community and family and therefore love to feature regular contributors and be in contact on Facebook, etc. For this reason, we do welcome multiple submissions and don't limit the number of times a year or ever that a writer can submit. But please keep common courtesy in mind and remember that a real live person reads through thousands of submissions in her "spare time." A good rule of thumb is to wait to hear back about work in the queue before sending more.
Join our Facebook page here. https://www.facebook.com/EkphrasticReview/
Writing that is not ekphrastic and relates in no way to art will be deleted without response. We receive hundreds of submissions like this and cannot spend time explaining our purpose and passion to those who have not even spent the time to look at our site.
A Note on Rejection
Despite what you may believe or have been told, the editorial process is a highly subjective one and also something of a lottery.
We strive to publish quality writing in a variety of voices and styles, but cannot possibly publish all the worthy work submitted.
We hate sending rejections.
Please understand that editors receive thousands of works. The Ekphrastic Review simply cannot post them all.
We don't send criticism or detailed reasons when we politely return your work. There are many reasons we can't use a piece, but the most likely is that we simply don't have room for all of the good writing we get.
Sample Submission
We are flexible and approachable and no one will be ousted for a faux pas.
That said, it takes a surprising amount of time to edit, arrange, and coordinate a post, and that time can be reduced exponentially for us if you follow this easy format!
subject line in email: Ekphrastic submission from Bob Smith/ a poetry submission on Monet/ Bob Smith sending more flash fiction on Edward Hopper paintings
Dear Lorette,
Note from you where you introduce yourself- or remind me if we've corresponded before -or update me briefly on your life if we know each other, because I'm curious about you and what you do.
Here are (one to five) poems/short stories/nonfiction observations for your consideration. My bio follows.
poem/story 1: link to Still Life With Apples, by Clod Money (France) 1903 www.link-to-image.com
Title of Poem
Poem
here
it is.
Do you like it.
Haiku!
Mary Jane Sziezmogalskojmanoff-Jones
Mary Jane Sziezmogalskojmanoff-Jones is an unknown writer living in Iceland with her 719 cats./ John Doe is a 150 time Pushcart winner who writes art features for The New York Times. She has had 209 poetry collections published by Simon and Scheister Books. She lives in Calgary, Alberta on a ranch and volunteers helping kids with art at St. Mary's Church.
Our Ekphrastic Mission
The Ekphrastic Review is committed to the growth, expansion, and practice of the art form of literary writing inspired or prompted by visual art.
We can no longer publish ekphrastic work inspired by other arts like cinema, dance, or music.
We define ekphrastic writing simply as "writing inspired by art." The piece can be an in-depth experience of the art work, or it can use the art as a starting point for expression. The connection to the artwork or artist can be subtle, or it can be central to the work.
Work that is not in some way ekphrastic will be deleted without being returned. We don't mean to be harsh but receive hundreds of submissions like this and it takes too much time to send a friendly reminder in every instance.
READING SCHEDULE: IMPORTANT INFORMATION
We read and respond to every submission we receive, and this takes a considerable amount of time even though we can only post a fraction of what we like. To handle the ever growing avalanche of submissions, we have carefully weighed our options, including reading fees, soliciting manuscripts instead of reading unsolicited works, membership submissions only, etc. These options could all help provide a solution for us but we don't like any of them, because they limit creativity and democracy. Our mission is to promote ekphrastic writing, the process as well as the resulting literary product. For these reasons, we are embarking instead on a receiving schedule, accepting submissions during alternate months only.
We WILL NOT accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
We WILL accept submissions in January, March, May, July, September, November.
WHAT TO INCLUDE
Include your work (one to five pieces, give or take, depending on length.)
Include your publishing name, and a bio.
Your work and bio must be finished. We will not make changes after your initial submission, or update your bio to include yesterday's publication credits. Do not send it if it isn't ready!
EDITS
We do not make extensive edits to anyone's work. We prefer to leave the voice and intention of the writer. We won't overhaul a piece to improve it or make it more like our editors' voice/s. Nor will we accept author changes or go back and forth. We do not have the time or budget or manpower to rewrite, change posts, and alter works after the fact of receipt. Your work will be posted 90% as is, with minimal editorial changes. Any changes will be simple typo corrections or extremely small changes for clarity, spelling, etc.
Any experimental spacing and margin may be reformatted. As a rule, we cannot encourage experimental formatting as it is impossible to post online.
Major changes or major corrections are rare, but if we want to make them, we will ask you, other than what is outlined above.
Ekphrastic Poetry
Submit one to five poems in the body of an email, with a cover letter and brief bio.
Any kind of poetry that responds to or explores or is inspired by a work of art or artist is eligible for consideration.
It is very difficult to use experimentally formatted poetry, even if we love it. We will consider it but understand that if we can't resolve a way to post it, we will have to return it. If we accept your poem, we will do our best to honour the spacing and format you have created, but computers have a mind of their own when translating data. If we fear the poem won't post true to its original, we may have to pass.
Please paste your poems in the body of the email. You can include a duplicate copy in PDF so that we can reference it for formatting or italics. Do not submit a PDF without including the poems in the body of the email. Word attachments are fine, too. The point is not to make difficult rules for you, but to make it easy for us to read the poems and to reference them correctly if we publish them.
We WILL NOT accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Prose
We love to see short stories and nonfiction prose of any kind. We are moved by beautiful language, insight, illumination, creativity, provocation, curiosity, contemplation, and witty repartee, not by tedious, stuffy academia or pretentious curatorial theory.
Brief is best. From 50 to 1500 words is ideal, but we will consider longer pieces that fit our diverse enthusiasms.
We WILL NOT accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Book Reviews/Author Interviews/Profiles/the Ekphrastic Experience
We want more articles that engage with ekphrastic books, features, author interviews or profiles, and articles about ekphrastic writing in general.
The subject matter must include and focus on ekphrastic writing. We are hesitant to use the words "book review" and are looking for literary prose about your experience with the ekphrastic writing you have read. We want literary, experiential, informative, funny, expressive, and insightful book reviews and author features, not utilitarian and uninspired, and not pedantic, academic criticism.
You can query your intentions to determine if the subject matter is right for us or to work out the best angle in advance.
200-1500 words is a good number to aim for, but we're flexible when there is cause to be.
We don't accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December. It is okay to query anytime.
Translations
We welcome the opportunity to publish more translations of ekphrastic writing, whether from English into another language, or from another language, into English. You must have permission to publish the original version of the poem you are translating.
We don't accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Reprints/ Simultaneous submissions
YES! SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS AND PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WRITING ARE WELCOME AND ENCOURAGED! Our objective is for poets and writers to be as widely read as possible, not to monopolize your work.
We don't accept submissions in February, April, June, August, October, December.
Reading Fees
The Ekphrastic Review is free to anyone with Internet connection. We do not charge reading fees, never have and never will.
Payment
We cannot pay. Everyone here is a volunteer. Sorry.
Who Can Submit
We welcome submissions from anyone, anywhere.
Attachments
Word or any common sense document format is fine, but include your work in the body of the email as well in case we can't open it.
A pdf is great to check for italics and spacing intentions that might disappear in transmission, but make sure to include the work in the email body as well.
Response Time
We do our best to respond within eight weeks. This is not always possible.
Rights
We happily publish previously published work if you have the rights. We like to acknowledge prior publications.
You always own your work and we never do. You are free to use your own work anywhere, anytime, before, during, or after we publish it. We do appreciate it very much if you acknowledge The Ekphrastic Review when work we published appears elsewhere.
Information About Choosing Artwork
We consider poems and prose inspired by any visual artwork including paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, collages, graffiti, advertisements, posters, mixed media, and more.
The artist can be famous or obscure, ancient or living down your street, important or important only to you.
We don't censor your inspiration and want you to explore and discover all kinds of art. That said, it can be much more difficult to get permission for living artists' work than it is for old masters in the public domain. Intimidating and expensive processes can prove a barrier to getting your work up with the art. This is our worry and not yours, but do understand that good writing based on public domain or ubiquitously appearing artwork is easier to publish than good writing based on contemporary artworks.
That said, we very much want to promote living artists and to encourage ekphrastic writing that responds to the art of living artists. If the art you are writing about is someone you know or have contact with or access to contact with, you are most welcome to help us out by providing that connection. Any information you have can help make it easier for us.
There are times we accept a piece of writing and cannot get permission to use the artwork. In these cases, we substitute an image with an explanatory note and a link if possible to the source of inspiration.
Info on How to Include Artwork in Submission
Please include a link to the artwork or a low to moderate resolution jpeg attachment and organize the information in a way that makes it apparent what work goes with what poem or story.
Please include the title, artist, artist's nationality, and year of artwork creation. Example of preferred format for this information: Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez (Spain) 1656
Do not put artwork into Google Docs or Word document or pdf. It can skew the format of your writing and we cannot always extract the image anyhow. Use a jpeg or a link to the image.
Miscellaneous
We can no longer consider Rattle outtakes.
We are a community and family and therefore love to feature regular contributors and be in contact on Facebook, etc. For this reason, we do welcome multiple submissions and don't limit the number of times a year or ever that a writer can submit. But please keep common courtesy in mind and remember that a real live person reads through thousands of submissions in her "spare time." A good rule of thumb is to wait to hear back about work in the queue before sending more.
Join our Facebook page here. https://www.facebook.com/EkphrasticReview/
Writing that is not ekphrastic and relates in no way to art will be deleted without response. We receive hundreds of submissions like this and cannot spend time explaining our purpose and passion to those who have not even spent the time to look at our site.
A Note on Rejection
Despite what you may believe or have been told, the editorial process is a highly subjective one and also something of a lottery.
We strive to publish quality writing in a variety of voices and styles, but cannot possibly publish all the worthy work submitted.
We hate sending rejections.
Please understand that editors receive thousands of works. The Ekphrastic Review simply cannot post them all.
We don't send criticism or detailed reasons when we politely return your work. There are many reasons we can't use a piece, but the most likely is that we simply don't have room for all of the good writing we get.
Sample Submission
We are flexible and approachable and no one will be ousted for a faux pas.
That said, it takes a surprising amount of time to edit, arrange, and coordinate a post, and that time can be reduced exponentially for us if you follow this easy format!
subject line in email: Ekphrastic submission from Bob Smith/ a poetry submission on Monet/ Bob Smith sending more flash fiction on Edward Hopper paintings
Dear Lorette,
Note from you where you introduce yourself- or remind me if we've corresponded before -or update me briefly on your life if we know each other, because I'm curious about you and what you do.
Here are (one to five) poems/short stories/nonfiction observations for your consideration. My bio follows.
poem/story 1: link to Still Life With Apples, by Clod Money (France) 1903 www.link-to-image.com
Title of Poem
Poem
here
it is.
Do you like it.
Haiku!
Mary Jane Sziezmogalskojmanoff-Jones
Mary Jane Sziezmogalskojmanoff-Jones is an unknown writer living in Iceland with her 719 cats./ John Doe is a 150 time Pushcart winner who writes art features for The New York Times. She has had 209 poetry collections published by Simon and Scheister Books. She lives in Calgary, Alberta on a ranch and volunteers helping kids with art at St. Mary's Church.