hotpoet has launched Equinox, a biannual digital multimedia journal that showcases poets, writers, and artists. While solstices are the extremes of the year, an equinox is equidistant, poised on the edge of one thing or another, the cusp of change or transformation. With this archetypal significance in mind, Equinox strives to explore the contemplative and motivational power of writers and artists; to celebrate how word and image can create a world and then change it.  

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Submission
We invite you to send us your poems, flash fiction, flash essay, photography, and art. We look for contemplative, argumentative, globally aware, despair-resistant, and apathy-abolishing works. 

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Submission Periods and Publication Dates:

We accept submissions via Submittable. 

 

Fall Submission Period: June 9th through August 12th.

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Fall Theme: Gaze into Space. As usual, this theme is open to your original response or singular spin on the concepts of “gaze” and/or of “space.” To get started, you might want to reflect on the many idioms and expressions that relate to space:

outer space, inner space, personal space, free space, safe space, breathing space, take up space, pressed for space, living space, free up space, save a space, waste of space, lost in space, need my space, space cadet, space cowboy, space out…

 

not to mention, all those metaphors and figures of speech we use that center around space:

 

over the moon, once in a blue moon, shoot for the moon, living on another planet, aim for the stars, come back down to earth, many moons ago, love you to the moon and back, out of this world, down to earth, failure to launch, stars in your eyes, thank your lucky stars, like a black hole, everything under the sun, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to…

Gaze into Space!

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Spring Submission: December 1st through February 18th with a publication date of March 20th.

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Spring Theme: To be announced.

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Submission Guidelines:

1. You may submit up to 3 pieces in any one genre (poetry, flash prose, or image) for a reading fee of $5, which will be used toward ongoing programs and publications at hotpoet, and which will fund a $100 “best in show” prize for every category of work (poetry, flash prose, and image) in each edition of Equinox.

2. You may submit more than three pieces or in multiple genres, but separate submissions are needed to do so and separate reading fees will be assessed for each.

3. We do not accept previously published work, whether online, self-published, in chapbooks, in anthologies, or in literary journals. We do accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you immediately withdraw any piece that gets accepted elsewhere for publication.

4. All submissions must be in standard font and formatting. Poetry should be single spaced with double spacing between stanzas. Prose should be double-spaced and include a word count. There is no line limit for poetry, but flash fiction and flash essay should be limited to 700 words. Images should be in png format.

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