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Voiceworks is a national, quarterly magazine that features exciting new writing. It is a unique opportunity for young writers and artists (under 25) to publish their poetry, short stories, articles and comics, illustrations, drawings and photos. It is produced entirely by young people and relies totally on contributions from the readers to make up the content. You are the driving force behind the magazine.

CONTRIBUTORS' GUIDELINES

• Be under 25 years of age (this means you are too old if you have turned 25 when you submit)
• Read the magazine
• Send us previously unpublished work:
  • poems
  • short stories
  • interviews
  • feature articles
  • comics
  • graphic fiction
  • cartoons
  • photos
  • drawings
  • illustrations
• Send only pieces you would like published – choose your best work
• Prose:
  • maximum of two pieces
  • no more than 3000 words
• Poems:
  • maximum of three pieces
  • no more than 70 lines
• DO NOT send us a selection of your recent work, or samples of previously published work – unless this is requested for a pitch
• Visual art must be:
  • supplied at actual size
  • in black and white or greyscale
  • at 300dpi
• Page dimensions are not quite A4 – 210mm x 270mm
• If emailing your submission (address below), use the body of the email to include:
  • full name (we need your real name to write out your cheque if your contribution is accepted)
  • pseudonym (optional)
  • email address
  • postal address (we need this to send you a copy of the mag if your contribution is accepted)
  • phone number
  • age (very important)
  • 25-word biography
• If posting your submission (address below), include in the envelope:
  • a stamped, self-addressed envelope
  • a cover sheet with all the information you would include in the body of an email
• DO NOT include your contact details in the manuscript
• DO NOT paste your submission in the body of the email – it usually turns into an incomprehensible mass of obscure punctuation by the time all of Word's junky formatting reaches us
• Electronic and printed submissions should be:
  • double spaced
  • in a serif font (like Times New Roman or Times)
• If there is a specific way you would like your words to be designed, or if you have visual elements to go with your words, give us design instructions – we can't guarantee to reproduce them that way, but we'll try
• DO NOT send us your only copy – we can't guarantee that our dog won't eat it
• Be patient: we have a small staff and are always doing our best to keep you in the loop about your submission – if you want to send your work elsewhere, please let us know
• Keep submitting, even if we send you a 'no' letter: many factors influence our selection of each piece for the magazine, including space, theme and the overall balance of each issue – you're work is probably good, but might not be suitable at the time of submission
• We do hold over submissions if we think they'll be more suitable for a future issue – this may be why you haven't heard from us
• If you haven't heard from us within 3 months, please contact us – something grievous might have happened, we might have died! We don't want to wind up one of those people who stink up their apartment because they died and no one thought it was strange to not hear from them for 3 whole months!
• Note: Since Voiceworks is funded by the Australian government, we have a policy of publishing only one international submission per issue.

If you have an idea for an article or a story, see Regular non-fiction opportunities for how to submit a pitch to the Editor. Or just send us the completed article as an unsolicited manuscript.

BEAUTIFULLY CORPOREAL CONTRIBUTION GUIDELINES

Beautifully Corporeal is an ongoing, interactive-literature section driven by YOU! The section is inspired by the French Surrealist technique, called Exquisite Corpse, of collaborating on a final composition by one person writing or drawing something on a sheet of paper, then folding the top to obscure most of the entry and passing the sheet on to the next contributor.

By ‘ongoing, interactive-literature section driven by YOU!’ we mean ‘interactive-literature section that will go on hiatus if we don’t receive submissions from YOU!’

If you want to make a submission to the Beautifully Corporeal section, but don’t really understand what to do, contact Ryan Paine at editor@expressmedia.org.au and he will explain everything except how to get the layers right in trifle.

Last issue we published ‘Meaning: Nothing’, in which Felice Howden develops on the idea, found in the previous instalment, ‘Snatches in Translation’ by Amy Yang, of being trapped inside a room for too long. Felice’s style and story structure varies significantly from that of Amy’s, but ‘Meaning’ is Felice’s natural extension of the themes carried through in Amy’s ‘Snatches’.

That’s how Beautifully Corporeal works: take something that resonated with you in the previous instalment, and build on it however you like.

If you know who boarded up Bradley’s window, send us the story. Or make a photo-essay about the misunderstood culinary value in green bathmats. You might like to just continue the plot and help Bradley get out of his door. Or write a poem that Bradley might have been inspired to write while learning about the mating rituals of frill-neck lizards. Whatever. Respond however you like.

Submit your creative responses to ‘Meaning: Nothing’ for issue #73 of Voiceworks (deadline Sunday 13 April, theme ‘Carnivale’). Submissions should be provided according to the submission guidelines on the previous page, or on the Express Media website (www.expressmedia.org.au).

Play Frankenstein!

UPCOMING THEMES

#73: Winter 2008 – CARNIVALE
Deadline: Sunday 13 April
Pitches due: 23 March
When we choose a theme title, we have absolutely no idea what we mean by it. Carnivale!? All we could think of was: The Garden of Unearthly Delights; the US TV series; and somebody saying with a rare South Australian inflection, ‘Let’s go to the carnivahl, eh?’ Otherwise, we have no idea what sort of work the carnivale theme will solicit. We might have a better idea by the time Harvest is published, but for now we just like the sound of the word, and the memories it evokes, like making hard clumps out of fairy floss by sucking on it and pressing it with your tongue the right way, and then pitching it at your stupid brother who won the big teddy bear when you only got the crappy set of stickers. It will evoke something different in you. Send us that!

VOICEWORKS #74: Spring 2008
Theme: INNUENDO
Deadline: Sunday 6 July
Pitches due: 15 June
They say he’s usually honest. They say she’s hiding something. They’re saying something but really, they’re not saying anything at all. We’re saying it’s innuendo - that thin grey line between suggestion and statement. It can be as subtle as a sideways glance. Or as obvious as a slap in the face. Innuendo can be smooth as Oscar Wilde and sharper than a steak knife. But we can promise you it’s up to no good. We know. We’ve heard stories.

... but theme isn’t everything – the theme blurbs are just a starting point. Think laterally about them, experiment, have fun. Tell us your thoughts, philosophies and stories. Remember the Voiceworks motto:

• themed work: good
• good work: better
• good themed work: BEST

If any of the deadlines fall on a weekend or a public holiday, submissions will be accepted on the following working day.

RATES OF PAY

Short stories, non-fiction & columns: $100
Poems: $60
Graphics, photos, drawings & illustrations: $50
Comics (one page or less): $50
Comics (two or more pages): $100

ADDRESSES
Email submissions to:
editor(at)expressmedia(dot)org(dot)au

Post submissions to:
Voiceworks submissions
Express Media
247 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000

QUARTERLY DEADLINES
Regular contributors please note: these have changed from previous guidelines – who's thinking about submitting fiction to a literary journal on 1 January anyway! The quarterly deadlines are now:

#73: Winter 2008 – CARNIVALE
Sunday 13 April
Pitches due: 23 March

#74: Spring 2008 – INNUENDO
Sunday 6 July
Pitches due: 15 June

#75: Summer 2008/09 – theme TBA
Sunday 28 September
Pitches due: 7 September

#76: Autumn 2009 - theme and dates TBA