Call for Submissions: Carnation, Vol. 3 (Fire)

Lacie Burning, Untitled Self Portrait, 2020. Published in Carnation, Vol. 2 (Pleasure), 2021.

Carnation, Vol. 3 (Fire) Call for Submissions

Carnation is a submission-based, self-published zine that shares artwork and writing created through a lens of diaspora and displacement by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of colour).

Carnation’s theme for Volume 3 is Fire.

Molotov cocktails. Altars. Vigils. Fire incites action and passion in the face of destruction and injustice. Fire as in anger; fire as in taking refuge; fire as in escaping war. Fire as in encampment. Fire as in too hot to touch and too thick to see through the smoke—a smoke that once cleared, reveals burnt flags, burnt bridges, and the skeletal remains of colonial institutions.

Fire is the beginning and the end, and can blur the distinction between these stages. When the earth expels lava and forms new land, does this cycle have an ending? Can we mark its beginning? Fire can mark finality with perceived definitiveness: a wildfire may wipe a land barren, yet be found to continue months later as a winter burn. Even in its finality, fire can prompt regeneration as the land responds to its dangerous qualities in brilliant ways.

We are accepting submissions related but not limited to the following topics on fire: memory, ritual, ceremony, communication, cleansing, transformation, hope, loss, colonization, war, climate disaster, protests, gatherings, warmth, cooking, smoking, smudging, nature, astrology, romance, lust, candles, burning letters, burning out, accidents, pain, rage, revenge, resistance, impulsiveness, anxiety, catharsis.

Vol. 3 will be guest co-edited with Whess Harman.

Selected contributors will be paid $300CAD and will get a free copy of the publication. We thank our funders Canada Council for the Arts and Manitoba Arts Council for making this possible.

Submission deadline: June 30, 2023, 11:59pm CDT.

For details visit our website.

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For inquiries, email us at carnationzine@gmail.com.