Submission Guidelines

We will be accepting submissions for our thirteenth and final issue, Cursed, from January 1 - March 15, 2021.

What We Publish

We're looking for works of literature, illustration, music, and other art that either/or...

  • are about maps and the paradoxes they engender.
  • are maps of some territory.
  • respond to an existing map in some way (i.e. ekphrasis). We find it helpful to think of the relationship between map and map-response in terms of prepositions. For example, you might...
    • construct a narrative that takes place within the map.
    • translate the map from its current medium to another.
    • map the territories outside the map.
    • write about a specific map, which is to say, explore the circumstances, history, and meaning of this particular object.

We want you to expand our sense of what a map can be.

For resources, see the Database and Feeds section of our Other Territories page.

Guidelines

We don't accept previously published or exhibited work. We are open to simultaneous submissions, but we prefer work written specifically to theme and you may only submit one manuscript per year. To plan around future issue themes, see the preview pages linked from our atlas.

We'd like to see work of no more than 7,500 words. For poetry and other shorter forms, please send a portfolio of 4-6 pieces, no more than 1000 words each, preferably work from the same project, or linked in some other way.

If your work responds to a map that isn't found on one of our preview pages, your submission should be accompanied by a hi-res version of the map or a link to the same, alongside rights and citation information for any images used.

How to Submit

We are currently accepting all submissions through Submittable.

In addition to a manuscript, we ask that you provide:

  • A generic bio and/or a link to your website and its list of publications, projects, exhibits, etc.
  • How you know about Territory and how you see your work fitting into what we're doing.
  • Any design stipulations / ideas you might have if we were to publish this piece.
  • Citation and rights information for all found texts.

Format your manuscript + attachments to follow these guidelines (assuming your artistic intent doesn't preclude doing so):

Medium Type / Encoding Resolution Formatting
Text .pdf, .docx, .doc Times New Roman
size 12
Image .jpg, .png, .tiff >1600x1200
72 ppi
Audio .m4a, .mp3 ~320 kbps
44.100 kHz
stereo
Video .mp4, .m4v, .mov,
.avi, .mkv		 >800x600
2 audio channels		 use any aspect ratio
use any color profile
Multimedia /
Computational		 Web (HTML/CSS/JS)

Try to bundle your attachments together when and how it makes sense: multiple poems in the same document, larger image sets bundled in zip files, etc.

Our Process

We will be accepting submissions for our thirteenth and final issue, Cursed, from January 1 - March 15, 2021. We aim to get back to you with a decision within 2-3 months.

We acquire First North American Serial Rights.

The best way to stay up to date on upcoming submissions periods is to follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or sign up for our Mailing List.

If you have any questions about our submission guidelines or about a specific theme, please send us an email.