COMING SOON!

Call for Submissions: CHAOS

We live in a time of unprecedented digital noise—a swirling maelstrom of notifications, algorithms, fleeting trends, and ceaseless information. The lines between connection and disconnection blur, leaving us grappling with the beauty, complexity, and tumult of it all.

For our upcoming issue, Light invites photographers and poets to explore the theme of Chaos. How does this pervasive, overwhelming feeling manifest in your creative lens? Does it reflect as disorder, vitality, or a search for balance amidst the digital storm?

We seek submissions that express the chaos of today’s digital landscape through arresting imagery and evocative words. From the fragmented to the fluid, the personal to the universal, show us what chaos means to you.

Let your work illuminate the beauty, fragility, and tension of living in the digital age. Through Light, let us unravel the Chaos together.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Light - A Journal of Photography & Poetry in it’s new iteration will be published annually.  

We select the best original work. Submitted photographs and poems cannot have been previously published in print or online. With your work, include a brief biographical statement. Be sure to provide URL's to your personal websites. While Light takes simultaneous submissions, contact us immediately if your work will be published first elsewhere so it can be removed from consideration.  We can only consider poetry submissions written in the English language.

We will strive to notify contributors of decisions within sixty days of receipt. As Light is a themed journal and will be edited holistically, final decisions might take longer. We’ll work to give you a timely response.

For your art to be published by Light, you must agree to grant us (1) First North American Serial Rights, (2) all archival rights for the journal, and (3) rights to reprint your work in any future editions of Light. We retain the rights to reproduce the material as issues of Light. The artist retains copyright of the work and is free to have it republished or exhibited in other media.

We solicit poetry and photography that responds to a theme. We look for work that resonates with us emotionally and intellectually. Be bold or subtle, dark or radiant, dangerous or constrained, but, most importantly, be you. Show the words and images that embody your vision.

We welcome work from both established and emerging artists. Black and white photography is preferred, although color will be considered.  Poems should be no more than forty lines long and fit on a single page. The journal’s design aesthetic is integral to our choice of content.

BEFORE YOU SUBMIT

Submit your best work
Light receives over 1000 poems and photographs per issue and this continues to grow. There are between 80 and 116 pages per issue. You may not get in the first, second or even third time you submit; do not be discouraged.  

Read the journal
Please read the journal either online, or in print to get a sense of what we are looking for.  Combining these two art forms is challenging and just as important as aesthetics is the thematic rhythm of the entire issue.  

Simultaneous Submissions
We appreciate your enthusiasm at the prospect of publishing your work in Light. However, Light's policy of permitting simultaneous submissions is offered as a courtesy to our remarkable contributors. We permit contributors the flexibility of submitting work already in consideration by other publishers; in return, we require that we are notified immediately when you have agreed to have it printed elsewhere via e-mail: editor@light-journal.com

Submit annually
Understand the rules of the different submission types
Light offers the category of "Individual Submission" for submissions of up to five poems or photographs. Each piece is taken on its own merits. 

Light offers the category of "Collection" for a series of thematically or technically interrelated poems or photographs. The point of the "Collection" is that the pieces clearly support each other. We'll want to publish all or a significant selection of them and make the photographer or poet one of the issue's featured contributors.

Please be aware that we judge "Portfolio" entries more critically. A series that contains a mixed bag of terrific and so-so, less compelling works will likely be removed from further consideration. To show the range and variety of your works to their best advantage, submit them as an individual submission. We'll happily offer to publish some or all of your individual works if they leave us gawping with wonder and delight.

Please don't try to play the field by submitting all your artistic inventory: five works in an "Individual Submission," ten in an additional "Collection," and another twelve in a second "Collection." As is the case with the art journals we admire, we request that our artists be their own best editors. Send us only your most exceptional unpublished work. Offering fifteen poems to choose from won't enhance your likelihood of getting printed in Light.

If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact us.