Mythopoeic Fiction, Poetry, and Art

 CLOSED FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR THIS ISSUE

Join the conversation on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3523058367962366/

And Discord: https://discord.gg/KVWmzSEn

Submission guidelines and payment information: https://roseswildflowersfantacists.com/roses-and-wildflowers/

Submit here using this WE ARE CLOSED For Submissions for this issue.

AFTER FEBRUARY 5, 2024. 

Please state: Autumn 2024 “Walking Away:” on your manuscript under the word count. 

Manuscripts received before February 5, 2024 by any other method or not in Shunn Standard Manuscript Form will not be read. 

Autumn 2024: Walking Away.

Submissions are CLOSED

In 1973, Ursula LeGuin wrote a short philosophical story that describes the perfect, peaceful, graceful city. A place with no hunger or sorrow, crime or discontent. A place where no one was homeless, lacked fulfilling work, and the arts and sciences flourished. Omelas. A place with a dark and terrible secret. And some walked away, unable and unwilling to pay that price.

“They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness.” Ursula LeGuin

What is out there, beyond Omelas? What does the journey look, feel, smell, taste like? What will be found, what will be lost, and what will be left behind?

What happens when one leaves? Who is left behind and who walks away? When is it the right action to walk away?

Can one ever return?

Outside the city of Omelas is darkness, perhaps a wilderness, Le Guin does not describe the road away, nor can she: It is “beyond” and unknown. Some few, unable to pay the price for the city’s perfection, walk away. It is an act of infinite courage: There is no return, no slipping back into happy ignorance: only the path forward, into the unknown.

She seems to register what is strange about this place. But she cannot describe what lies beyond, in “the darkness” outside of  Omelas, because each person there must make her own way. … As readers, Le Guin provides us with the building blocks to construct the city of Omelas, but if we want to forsake it afterward, then we too have to strike out alone. (DeGraff, 2015. pp. 121)

Outside of Omelas is the world, where nothing is ever perfect, but where freedom may be found. – Coreopsis Journal of Myth & Theatre,  Lezlie A. Kinyon, Ph.D. Ed September, 2016 https://www.societyforritualarts.org/coreopsis/fall-2016-issue/walk-away-reflections-on-omelas-and-growing-up-during-the-cold-war/

We will accept 5 short stories and 4 poems for Autumn 2024 inspired by the idea of walking away.

Note to Artists and Musicians: This call is open to you as well. We can work with jpegs and audio files. Please send a query to [email protected].

Payment is $20 per story, 7,500 words hard limit,and $5 per poem, 40 line limit. We do not accept flash fiction at this time.