Please also see our new website for more information: http://www.redinkinternationaljournal.wordpress.com/
Open Call For Submissions:
The primary purpose of RED INK: An International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, Humanities is to reflect the expressive voice of Indigenous (Native) America as a social-cultural entity that is without a doubt the aboriginal and on-going community of the Western hemisphere more commonly known as the Indigenous community and world of North, Central, and South America. This purpose is determined by the circumstances facing present-day Indigenous social-cultural society, but it is often necessary for views held by Indigenous peoples to be presented publicly and forthrightly. These views will be mostly of literary, artistic, and humanistic nature based upon the precepts that “literature and art are knowledge,” “literature and art are based upon and derived from oral traditional knowledge,” and “humanities are the basis of literature and art,” all which are foundational to Indigenous and all peoples today.
Submissions:
RED INK is published twice a year: Spring and Fall. Each issue will feature approximately 150-200 pages of work.
Open submissions: We are currently open to submissions of poetry, non-fiction, short fiction, plays, literary essays, book reviews, and artwork. Our issue will be published in Fall 2016.
What to submit:
General guidelines: (See also guidelines below for your specific genre)
Each submission should be sent as one Word file. Cover letters and brief bios are required (including your Indigenous affiliation or cultural heritage).
We are a small staff and we take our time with the work. We generally respond in 4-5 months. Please wait to query about your work until after this timeframe.
ALL submissions should be in MLA format, 12 pt Times New Roman, typed, paginated, and should include your name, address, phone number, and email address in the header of the first page.
We do not accept previously published materials. That includes online publications or blogs. At times we may solicit excerpts.
For international submissions: Please include writing in your language along with an English translation.
We do not accept submissions via email or regular mail. All work must be submitted using our submittable.com portal. (Unless you are without internet connection or access to e-mail--then submissions may be mailed to RED INK, Department of English, Arizona State University, PO Box 870302, Tempe, AZ 85287-0302.) Creating an account is free, and you can easily keep track of your submissions from within your account. Red INK will respond to each submitted manuscript within four to five months. If you need to withdraw your piece, please withdraw through the submission manager. If you are withdrawing only part of your submission, please make a note in Submittable (rather than emailing the editors). If RED INK publishes your writing, the editors reserve the right to republish it in future print anthologies or online versions. Authors retain rights to their work—if the work is republished in a future collection or anthology, please indicate that it originally appeared in RED INK. Other queries or correspondence should be directed to Editors Travis Frank, Kenny Rednor, Shiloh Ashley, and Bojan Louis at RedInkInternational7@gmail.com.Thank you for your interest in and support of RED INK.
Genre guidelines (please follow both general and genre guidelines)
Poetry: 1-5 poems (as one document).
Prose: No more than 7000 words. Prose writers submit only one story or essay or play (or up to three short-short stories or micro-essays under 1000 words). Do not submit more than piece at a time if longer. Please wait until you have heard back about the first piece before submitting another.
Critical work: No more than 5000 words, including bibliography and notes. We require MLA style.Those submitting critical work should send one literary essay and should wait until they have heard back before submitting another.
If you wish to suggest a book review, please send a query letter first.
Artwork: 1-3 pieces of work (If this is work which cannot be submitted through submittable, please query the editors at RedInkInternational7@gmail.com). Right now, we can only publish black and white artwork within the journal. A cover would certainly be either color or otherwise.
We are working to create an online space to publish artwork which cannot be contained within a printed journal such as spoken word, photo essays, videos, and so on. Please do submit videos, spoken word, oral narratives, or any other work outside the printed world as we are excited for this type of work!
We at RED INK believe that print is not the only space for Indigenous work. So we are building a space for artwork and criticism which cannot be in our printed journal. We are looking to fill this section of our webpage and promote new kinds of art including spoken word, presentations, narrative, film (short and long), and performance. We are also seeking collections from artists that want to showcase more work. As we can only publish one color piece as the front cover, this is a good space to submit more than one work--but instead pieces that tie together as a unit. Please submit each piece separately. But in the first cover letter, explain which pieces go together and how and why they connect.
More technical guidelines will be coming soon. Please query at our general e-mail if you have questions on what types of files to submit for this.
Please indicate in your submission which spaces you are most interested in submitting to: cover, inside journal, or webpage.
We seek book review submissions that identify leading works in fields and genres pertinent to Indigenous peoples. The review should be a synthesis of summary, critique/evaluation, and recommendation. These could review creative work of any kind, or critical texts.
RED INK wants to publish stories and essays which move beyond the typical “Indian” story or experience. The piece should explore varieties of Nativeness, or new ways of speaking about Indigenous experiences, rather than saying things already said before, or stereotypical of Hollywood. Language can be quiet or passionate or pushy. But truly, we seek that piece which results in a head nod moment of connection, that moment where perhaps the purpose no longer matters, but the work allows readers time to engage and understand the art without needing to place the art in a box. We certainly get excited about work experimenting with form or voice or character or genre. But too, well-written linear works or oral stories also will be highly considered. Works that celebrate and evoke Indigenous worldviews which oftentimes don’t get sought out and are underrepresented are central to our purpose. Under consideration is a balance of male and female voices, as well as shorter and longer pieces. Good writing goes far with us and says a lot about time and effort given to the work.