Call for submissions: Roots

July will be our last issue before our annual August publishing break, and the theme is “Roots.” You have about three weeks to consider what story you might like to contribute! As always, we’re interested in:

  • Poems
  • Images
  • Essays

Thank you for your consideration!

Editorial guidelines
Online submission form


Roots

Submission deadline: June 9
Publishing dates: July 3-21

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul,” wrote Simone Weil. We’re each born with some sort of roots, and we each grow them to some degree or another throughout our lifetimes–once, twice, many times. This issue will feature stories of our own sense of rootedness–and uprootedness–past, present, and future.

Prompts

  • “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” How do you respond to Simone Weil’s quote from your own experience?
  • Where are your family’s roots? What has “uprooting” looked like in your family’s history?
  • What has uprooting looked like in your own story?
  • What is it like to live in a place other than where you were born? Or, what is it like to live in the place where you were born?
  • Are you the type of person who longs for roots, or who feels anxious when you can begin to feel them starting to grow in a place? Have your feelings changed throughout your life?
  • Whom do you think of as having very deep roots in the place where you currently live? What is their story?
  • Technological developments have increased the degree of geographic mobility around the world. How has this mobility been positive in your experience? How has it been destructive?
  • What, specifically, does living a deeply rooted life look like to you in everyday life? How does rootedness impact what you say yes to, and what you say no to?
  • How has power interacted with the human inclination to put down roots in your place?