Back in January, we published We Are Flowers, the debut anthology of writing and visual art by the Nigerian LGBTQ literary collective, 14, which took its name from the 14-year jail term prescribed by the country’s anti-gay law. The project was met with astounding reception. An essay from the anthology was shortlisted for the Brittle Paper Anniversary Award. The editors of 14, who made a call for submissions for an August issue, now have new information concerning their plans.

Download: 14: An Anthology of Queer Art | Vol 1: We Are Flowers

14: Statement of Regret About Our August Issue

Back in March, we put out a call for submissions for an August issue around the theme, Sex, with the intention of exploring homoeroticism and the politics of the queer body through poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction/memoir, tweets, and art work. Unfortunately, August is almost at an end and this issue has not appeared. This is because we received very little work for the issue, so we decided to cancel it in the meantime. We are grateful to the writers and artists who sent their work to us for the theme, and apologize for any inconveniences this change might have caused.

We are happy, however, to let you know that we received a good number of exciting works for our January 2018 issue. We are still accepting work for January (unthemed) and will be considering until November 15.

A quick reminder of the submission guidelines:

All submissions should be emailed to [email protected].

Poetry: We accept up to three poems from a single person. All poems by one person must be in one Word document, with each poem properly titled.

Fiction (flash or short story): Short stories must not exceed 3,000 words. Please note that we will be accepting very little fiction.

Creative non-fiction/memoir/essay etc: We want non-fiction pieces written in language that resembles that of fiction. We do not accept pieces that read like reportage or sermons. Non-fiction pieces can range from 1000 to 3,500 words, although we’ve published more, depending on the strength of the prose.

Art / Photography: An artist/photographer is free to send up to 3 art works or photographs. My Life in Tweets: For the January (Unthemed) anthology, tweet @naijaqueerart using #IAmQueer.

It’s always exciting to read work from community members and allies. We, the editors of 14, look forward to receiving your work.

We are sensitive to the climate in Nigeria and know that most of our artists would like to protect their privacy. As a result, we encourage artists to create pseudonyms under which to feature their works. Bios, also, can contain non-specific points. Since this is an anthology celebrating queer art and resilience in Nigeria, artists are free to include their sexual or gender orientation in their bio.