Submission guidelines

*SUBMISSIONS FOR JA. MAG 20 ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED*

Hello there, friends.

Did you know that Ja. mag is a whopping five years old this year? Five years. That means if you’ve been reading us from the beginning, you can now add ‘Masters Degree in Ja. magazine (Obtained with distinction)’ to your LinkedIn. Well done!

We’re also building up to our 20th edition/iteration/stubbornly hopeful publication this year and while we’re still not entirely sure when it’ll be coming out or what form it will take, we’re looking for original creative work from you.

WORDS:

Short stories, essays, flash fiction, ramblings, a prose piece written by an algorithm, thoughts scribbled down on a seven-month-old exhibition catalogue that you for some reason still have in your home — It’s all good, it’s all welcome!

VISUALS:

Paintings, prints, photo-essays, doodles, cellphone photos of haphazardly encountered obscurities and banalities, a drawing you did on your friend’s face, illustrations, childhood photos of Niamh looking menacingly at a bouquet of plastic flowers — Anything goes!

CORONA CAVEAT:

We know many of you are using this period to create new written and visual work as a means of making sense of the global Covid-19 pandemic. We also know that many of you don’t feel like talking about current affairs at all and are using this time to do nothing else but engage in some top-class South African reality television. Both of these things are fine. Either one can be used to form the basis of your submission. Or neither one of them can. What we’re trying to say is that amidst a barrage of lockdown and quarantine-themed zines and creative projects, we are open to whatever. Corona fatigue is real. We process things at different times, so don’t allow yourself to be pressured into creating anything immediate or urgent if you don’t want to.

Submission deadline: CLOSED.

We can’t wait to publish your work!

Submission guidelines and details below:

Thinking of submitting your work for the next Edition of Ja. mag? That’s great news! Let’s cut to the chase, then:

• Money: We have none ☹ Ja. magazine is a non-profit publication which seeks to platform and celebrate new forms of art and storytelling. We make no money from any of the work we publish, we do what we do for the love of it, and to champion emerging artists, writers and creators. We do believe that all artists should be recognised and respected for their work and while we try our best to get funding to do just that, it’s not always possible — so please note that all submissions are currently unpaid.
• Where will your work be published?
  In our e-zine. Ja. magazine is a digital publication, published online. Select works will also be published on our Medium page, and whenever we do find ourselves with a bit of cash to spare, we put out a short print run of the magazine, too (but no promises there, unfortunately). EDIT: For the duration of Ja. mag’s rolling submissions period, all published works will be on our Medium.
• Republishing: We like to see the work of our contributors circulate as widely as possible. For this reason, we keep all of the work we publish open-source and available for republishing. In the event that we’re approached by another media organisation wanting to republish your work, we’ll contact you to talk through the details. In the event that another media organisation is able to pay for your work, all payment will go to you. EDIT: If, after publishing their work in Ja. mag, contributors want to publish their work elsewhere, we request that you acknowledge Ja. magazine as the original publisher.
• Who will see your work? Each edition of Ja. is shared to, and circulated among our ever expanding online audience. Each edition is also boosted to targeted audiences across South Africa via our social media channels. Ja. magazine also sends detailed breakdowns of each edition to our friends in the arts and media industries (locally and abroad) in an effort to more directly showcase the work of our contributors to the people who can afford to either pay or employ them.
• Where do you submit? Right over here: jamagsa@gmail.com But don’t forget to read through the section below before hitting send.

SHORT STORIES, PROSE, JOURNAL SCRIBBLINGS:

- Word count: 200–5000

- Please include a headline or suggested title with all submissions.

- Written pieces can be of any topic ranging from short stories (both fiction and non-fiction) and reviews to opinion pieces, profiles and more. Please label your submission eg: ShortStorySubmission, PersonalEssaySubmission etc.

- Try and back up information where need be (by sending us links which support facts/statements).

- Submissions to be emailed in a word document. Should you want your work presented with specific images please make a note in your email.

- Please include a short, written bio (+-40 words) with your submission.

POETRY:

- No word count.

- We accept up to four poems at a time. Please attach each poem in a separate word document with the title and your name in each.

- Please include a short, written bio (+-40 words) with your submission.

PHOTOGRAPHY, ILLUSTRATION AND VISUAL ART:

- High resolution images only (Min. 700 pixels)

- When submitting, either attach a few examples of your work, or email us a link to a Dropbox/Google Drive/Wetransfer to the work (no more than 20 images/examples)

- Please include a brief written statement or explanation of the work.

- If you wish for us to link your work through to any of your online profiles, please include links and handles in your email.

- Your work may be published alongside a written piece of work. We will let you know beforehand.

- Please include a short, written bio (+-40 words) with your submission.

ANYTHING ELSE:

If you’ve seen one of our editions before, you’ll know that we don’t limit ourselves to publishing the kind of work you’d conventionally see in magazines, newspapers, literary publications or even online. If you’ve got something a little experimental or something that doesn’t quite fit into a specific medium, and you think it could work for our publication, just send it through with a bit of written context and we’ll see if it can fit in.

No racism, sexism, classism, ableism or general arseholery will be published. As much as we encourage new views and opinions, we won’t be giving any time to hurtful or regressive work.

Due to the size of our team and the volume of submissions we receive, we are, unfortunately, not able to respond to everyone. If you don’t receive a response from us, please consider your submission unsuccessful. This is not to say, however, that your work isn’t valuable, but rather that it most likely doesn’t fit in with our publication style.