And we're back... with a call for submissions!

Did you miss us? It has taken a little longer than we would have liked but the good ship Elsewhere is sailing once more. Starting this week, we will be bringing more writing, visual arts, music, events, interviews and other place-related literature and art to the Elsewhere: A Journal of Place website as well as a revamped newsletter detailing everything we are up to that we plan to send out twice a month. You can sign up for the newsletter here. To get us started though, the big news is that we have finalised our plans for the next print issue of the journal, and we want your submissions.

ELSEWHERE NO.06: TO THE MOUNTAINS!

The sixth issue of our print journal will be published in Autumn 2019 in a limited edition print run and we have opened a submissions window that will run until the 30 June.

We are doing something different with this sixth edition of our print journal and invite submissions of prose, poetry, illustration, photography or other visual arts that are related to our theme of place and that have the name of an individual mountain as the title.

GUIDELINES FOR PRINT SUBMISSIONS

Beyond the limitations set by the title, for prose (fiction or nonfiction) there is an upper word limit of 5000 words and we would like to read completed pieces. For visual arts we are happy to consider a proposal but it would be great to see some examples of your work. Please send all submissions for Elsewhere No.06 to paul@elsewhere-journal.com.

Please note that, unfortunately, we do not pay contributors to Elsewhere. We have long had this as our aim, but the project as it is right now cannot sustain it. As a literary journal with a small print-run and sales, with no advertising or any external support, we have very little room for manoeuvre. In the four years since we have launched, neither Paul, Julia or any of the team have been paid for their work on the journal.

Remember: The deadline for all submissions is 30 June 2019

WRITING FOR THE BLOG

We are always open to submissions for the blog where there is no theme other than place. We are especially interested in work that would benefit from being published online, such as film and music, and when it comes to prose we rarely accept work for online publication that is more than 1000 words. To submit your writing, photography, artwork, music, illustration or film on the subject of place for the blog the address is paul@elsewhere-journal.com.

EVENTS & EXHIBITIONS

We would also like to use the blog to showcase any place-related events, readings and exhibitions, anywhere in the world. If you have something that you think would be of interest to our readers, please let us know.

PRE-ORDERS FOR ELSEWHERE NO.06

The financial situation at a literary journal such as ours is always precarious, and so we will be hoping to sell as many copies of Elsewhere No.06 in advance as possible. Unlike with previous issues, No.06 will be only available through our website. We will be making the issue available for pre-order in the summer so please sign up for our newsletter to keep track of where we are up to. In the meantime, if you would like to support the journal, please consider buying one of our back issues or a double set via our online shop.

We are really pleased to be moving with Elsewhere once more, and we can’t wait to see what we get, both for the print issue and also for here on the blog. Thanks to everything who has supported the project up to now, and for your patience since Christmas.

Paul & Julia

Elsewhere No.05: Some thoughts from the editors

IMAGE: Paul & Julia in discussion, Tim hiding behind the camera

For the first time in the short history of the journal, for Elsewhere No.05 we did the submissions process a little differently. Unlike with the previous four editions of the journal, we had a call for submissions  and a specific window of time in which people had to get us their work. On top of that, Elsewhere No.05 is also the first time we had a theme. So we were certainly interested, as the 31 March deadline approached, as to what writing and visual art on the theme of place and transition we would receive.

This week, after weeks of reading, I sat down with our editor Tim Woods and our creative director Julia Stone, at Elsewhere HQ Berlin-Neukölln to discuss the submissions and, slowly but surely, build a contents list for the fifth edition of the journal. With the number of submissions, we were unable to give personal feedback to every person who sent us their work, but we thought it might be a nice idea to share some general thoughts from our perspective, which might be food-for-thought for anyone submitting to us or another magazine/journal in the future:

Theme

Elsewhere is a “journal of place” and we decided, for issue No.05 to add the theme of “transition” into the mix. Now, within both of these there is an awful lot of room for manoeuvre. We had said from the beginning that genre or style of writing is not a deciding factor. Fiction or non-fiction. Poetry or prose. We will consider writing that could be labelled memoir or travel-writing, psychogeography or local history, reportage or experimental fiction … we really don’t care. What we are interested in is that it is good, and that it somehow conveys some sense of place within the topic of transition. Unfortunately, some submissions either did not relate to the issue theme of transition and/or were not related to the topic of place, and so however well-written they might have been, they were just not right for us.

That said, we did receive an incredible mix of writing and other submissions that DID fit the theme of the issue; from prose essays to poetry; illustration to photography; interview suggestions and book reviews. What was most gratifying was not only the quality of the work shared with us, but the diversity of approaches and styles that made it so much fun to read and also so difficult to come to a final decision. It meant that the decision-making process took a bit longer than we would have hoped, but it was certainly never boring!

Transition

Talking of the theme, and this is not a criticism but more an observation; we were interested in how many of the writers sending us the work interpreted the theme of transition on a very personal level, relating to movement, home and emotion, rather than on a political or societal level. As you will hopefully see when Elsewhere No.05 is published, we have tried to put together a journal that offers a mix of different perspectives on that theme.

Paris and Berlin

Perhaps because of where we are based, we often get a lot of submissions on the topic of Berlin. And for this issue, the German capital was joined by its French counterpart as the most popular place to write about in our submissions pile. But especially when it comes to Berlin and other places we know well and – more crucially – have been written about a lot, we are extremely picky. It is a reminder that writing about places that have been covered a lot, or with which your audience are familiar, it can sometimes be more difficult to make your writing stand out.

Format

At Elsewhere we consider every submission that arrives, however it is formatted and even if it is clear at first glance that someone hasn’t read our submissions guidelines. Sometimes, in very rare cases, we also receive submissions from people who appear to think we are someone else, or haven’t actually looked at what we DO publish. It would not take long on our blog, for example, to know that we are unlikely to publish a listicle piece about 30 Ways To Get Cheap Spring Break Tickets To Europe. It is also better not to send submissions addressed to our friends at The Berlin Quarterly or Gorse.

In general though, what was really nice about this submissions window was how many people did appear to be following what we do, both in print and online, and had sent us pieces that they thought would interest us. In the vast, vast majority of cases this was true, and the reading process was all the more pleasurable for it. We also wanted to use the blog to say thank you to everyone who took the time to send us their work. We really appreciate it. And we can’t wait to share the details of Elsewhere No.05 in the coming weeks.

Paul

Elsewhere No.05: Submissions Deadline on Friday

IMAGE: Julia Stone

For all you writers and visual artists out there, just a quick reminder that our deadline for submissions for Elsewhere No.05 – to be published in June 2017 – is this coming Friday on the 31 March. 

For the first time, along with our general theme of place, we are having a theme for the issue: TRANSITION, and the only guidelines are that completed pieces should be linked to both the idea of transition and place. 

With regards to length, most pieces we publish will be between 1000 and 5000 words. We also remain interested in photography, illustration and other visual arts projects related to the theme of place. Please remember that, unfortunately, we cannot continue to pay contributors to Elsewhere. We have long had this as our aim, but the project as it is right now cannot sustain it.

If you have something you would like us to consider, please write to Paul at: paul@elsewhere-journal.com

If you are interested in writing for the blog, you can find more information on our general submissions page.