The goal of Leaves & Flowers is to bring together creative writers, artists, sculptors and designers in order to explore the ways that each individual person interprets the same basic idea. Each edition will feature pieces that are all centered on a prompt given out to interested parties. One of the things that fascinates me about the writing process is how different people have such widely different takes on the same subject, and collecting those various forms of expression into one literary journal is a way to explore and show off those differences.
For the first publication of Leaves & Flowers, the prompt is this: Everyone has experienced fear of some kind; sometimes it’s as easy to hide from fear as it is to address it. Create a piece in which fear is a central element, whether that fear gets addressed or not.
As far as submissions go, any work will be considered, so long as it can be represented on the printed page. Writing can be prose, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, essays, short stories –anything you can write down, I will consider. Artwork is welcome also well: photography, painting, sculpture, collage –whatever you can create and transmit to me on the page, I will consider. Videos and sound are obviously impossible to put on paper, but whatever still images or other multimedia forms you can incorporate into something I can print, I will consider.
All artwork must be based off of the prompt above –what I’m looking for is your interpretation of that prompt. Take it and run with it. Let your imagination be in control, and send me whatever it is you create.
The submission process is simple. I need an e-mail, sent to leavesandflowers@gmail.com with Leaves & Flowers in the subject line. Your piece of work needs to be sent as an attachment to the e-mail. I have a Mac, so if you’re using an older version of Windows, make sure it’s saved in a format that I’ll be able to open (and if it’s not, I’ll get in touch with you so we can work something out). The body of your e-mail should contain a very brief cover letter: your name, a bio of 150 words or fewer, a short description of the piece of work and, if you want, an explanation of how you interpreted the prompt (solely to satisfy my curiosity).
Make sure you tell me exactly what your piece is –if you write a fictional story that seems like it could be true, I won’t know where to place it in the journal; spare me the time and effort of contacting you more than I need to and let me know from the start what sort of work you’re including. Feel free to send multiple pieces and types of artwork.
And that’s all there is to it! Once I have the pieces, I will be working with format and design principles, I may send pieces back to you with revisions or rewrites and in some cases, I may ask two or more authors/creators if I can make their pieces work together on the page (and you can say no to me, don’t worry about that). Although I can’t afford to pay for your time and effort, I can make the journal available for purchase by you, your parents and grandparents and anyone else you think would enjoy your work. Once L&F is published, I will let you know where you can find it, how much it will be and if I can get you any discounts.
The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2010.
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