- This submission category is open only to authors and artists who are “new to MacQ”; that is, their works have not appeared in MacQueen’s Quinterly (2020-2024) or in MacQ’s predecessor, KYSO Flash (2014-2019).
- Submissions for “Folks New-to-MacQ” will open early Sunday morning, 10 November 2024, and will close either at 11:59 PM Eastern Time (US) on Saturday, 16 November 2024, or when the maximum number of 25 (twenty-five) submission files in this category has been received, whichever occurs earlier.
- Please do NOT include your name and bio within your submission file. And please omit your name from the name of the file that you upload.
Doing so will help us review your work(s) as impartially as possible. Submittable provides text boxes in which you can enter your personal info. Many thanks for your understanding and cooperation.
- Only one submission file per person will be considered. But of course each file may contain multiple short-form works.
In this category, “Up to 10 Works for $4,” a single submission file may contain up to ten pieces—and the total word count of the file must be no more than 5,000 (five thousand), including the title of each piece, and any epigraphs and/or author footnotes.
NOTE: MacQ counts the words in lineated poetry, instead of lines.
- Themes are open, and subject matter may be eclectic, ranging from mundane to marvelous, from serious to humorous (even “Something Silly” if you would like).
Just a tip: Because MacQ is saturated with writing from the first-person perspective, publisher Clare MacQueen would love to see more pieces written in third person.
- First of three scenarios: You may want to submit a single nonfiction piece of 5,000 words, such as CNF, memoir, critical essay, an in-depth book review or interview, etc. Max word count of 5,000 includes title of the piece, and any epigraphs and/or author-provided footnotes. Extra points for including links to your sources!
- Second scenario: You may want to include in your single submission file up to five flash-length works, each of which runs no longer than a thousand words (including title, etcetera). Again, the total word count of all five pieces together should be no more than five thousand.
In this second scenario, multiple genres and flash-length forms are welcomed, including fiction, nonfiction (CNF, memoir, personal essays, mini reviews, etc.), prose poetry, lineated poetry, and poetic hybrids such as cheribun, haibun, and tanka prose. As well as sequences.
- A sequence of linked pieces is considered a single work at MacQ, even if it includes multiple short poems or half a dozen hybrid pieces like haibun. Max word count for the sequence itself is 1,000 (one thousand), including a sequence title, and any epigraphs and/or author footnotes.
Three examples of micro-poem sequences published in MacQ:
“2020 Hindsight” (119-word sequence of 12 haiku by Margaret Dornaus)
“Born Again” (83-word sequence of five cherita and variations by Cynthia Anderson)
“Country Ku” (47-word sequence of five haiku by dl mattila).
See also this pair of flash-length sequences in MacQ:
“Scribble Away: Notes from Bahrain, March 2022” (968-word sequence of nine haibun by Bob Lucky)
“Memento Mori” (709-word sequence of five cheribun by Daryl Scroggins)
- Third scenario: You may want to include in your single submission file up to 10 micro-works, each of which is no longer than 500 words, including any title, epigraphs, and/or author footnotes. Multiple genres and short forms are welcomed.
TIP: Most lineated poems fall into the category of micro-works at MacQ, as most of the poems we receive are fewer than 500 words long.
The micro-works category also includes hybrid artworks such as haiga, chaiga, taiga, and shahai (aka, photo-poems)—with the exception of digital artworks created by image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2, and MidJourney. See note about digital art below.*
- And last but never least: If your submission file also contains ekphrastic work(s), awesome! Please be sure to include links to the visual art, music, sculpture, etc. which inspired your work(s). Thanks so much!
[For specific tips and examples of the kind of ekphrasis MacQ publishes, see: “Ephective Ekphrastics: A Guide to Verbalizing Art” (an essay by Jack Cooper and Clare MacQueen), and/or “Finding the Door: One Writer’s Approach to Ekphrasis” (excellent recommendations by Robert L. Dean, Jr. on ekphrastic writing).]
- To reiterate: Submissions for “Folks New-to-MacQ: Up to 10 Works for $4” will close either at 11:59 PM Eastern Time (US) on Saturday, 16 November 2024, or as soon as the maximum number of 25 (twenty-five) submission files in this category has been received, whichever occurs earlier.
We look forward to seeing your writing and/or artworks soon. Thanks so much!
*Note re digital art generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Please do not submit any digital art created by image-synthesis generators such as Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2, and MidJourney. Such generators include databases of millions of images, as well as image metadata, that have been harvested online, typically without the permission of the original artists and copyright holders.
Last year, there were thirteen new copyright-related lawsuits alone filed against AI companies—the majority of which were filed as class-action lawsuits. At the heart of these complaints, visual artists, book authors, songwriters, and other creators and copyright owners are alleging infringement of their copyrights resulting from the ingestion of protected works to train AI models. The sheer number of these lawsuits and the pace at which they were filed are not surprising. This is in part because the capabilities of AI technologies have exploded, and AI companies have failed to meaningfully address or remedy the harms to creators and copyright owners related to the mass scraping and unauthorized use of expressive works to train commercial AI models.
From “AI and Copyright in 2023: In the Courts” by Rachel Kim at Copyright Alliance (4 January 2024).
Until these issues are legally resolved in the United States, Clare MacQueen cannot in good conscience publish AI-generated artworks in MacQ—even though she may think they look amazing.