The chapbook cover of Romeo Oriogun’s Burnt Men. Image by Chibuihe-Light Obi.

Praxis Magazine Online has made a call for submissions to its remarkably successful poetry chapbook series. The series, open to all poets irrespective of nationality, publishes poetry chapbooks online.

Launched in March 2016, authors published in the series—the first two of which were JK Anowe’s The Ikemefuna Tributaries and Romeo Oriogun’s Burnt Men—have gone on to impact the direction of contemporary Nigerian poetry. After Burnt Men, the first poetry chapbook focusing on the lives of gay Nigerians, Oriogun went on to win the Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2017. And after The Ikemefuna Tributaries, JK Anowe went on to receive the Brittle Paper Award for Poetry in 2017 and spearhead a new sub-tradition of Self-centric, subversive poetry. Other chapbooks in the series include Stanley Princewill McDaniels’ Entrapment and Kanyinsola Olorunninsola’s In My Country, We’re All Crossdressers.

The series, long helmed by Praxis’ poetry editor Laura Kaminski, is now overseen by JK Anowe.

Here is their call:

Praxis Magazine Online seeks to publish a number of chapbooks per year. We do not charge reading fees or hold contests. Chapbooks are selected during our reading periods or, occasionally, through solicitations.

We are interested in poetry that redefines language and form, poetry that shocks, that makes us both revere and question the ordinariness/magic of the world around us. Poetry that enacts a careful understanding of music, passion and creativity. Nonetheless, we are not bound by any specific aesthetic; our sole mission is to publish poetry collections of high potential and quality from Africa and elsewhere.

We welcome submissions from a variety of new, emerging, established, and underrepresented voices including, but not limited to, women poets, LGBTQ poets, disabled poets, and poets of colour.

Our reading period for 2019 opens on 5 January and closes 5 February. All submissions must be emailed by midnight, WAT, on 5 February. Any submissions received outside the reading period, or through any means other than that stated, will be ignored.

Please submit only one manuscript during the reading period. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please inform us via email if it is accepted by another publisher.

Send all submissions to [email protected]. The subject line of your email should read “Submission / Poetry Chapbook.” Attach the manuscript as a Word document.

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts that do not abide by these guidelines would be unattended to. Please read carefully:

  • Manuscripts MUST be the original work of entrants.
  • Only manuscripts written in English are accepted.
  • Under no circumstances can alterations be made to manuscripts once entered.
  • Under no circumstances will the editors or the Praxis team enter into discussions with entrants who have submitted manuscripts.
  • The editors’ decisions are final. They reserve the right not to select any manuscript during this or any reading period if, in their opinion, such an action is justified.
  • The editors will not enter into any correspondence with entrants regarding their final decisions.
  • People who have submitted manuscripts in the past can re-submit, but advisably with a new manuscript.
  • The entrants whose manuscripts are selected MUST be available via email to reply promptly to correspondence.
  • If your work is selected, we reserve the rights to archive your work on our website and to use your work, with credit given to you as the author, for promotional purposes. Otherwise, upon publication, all rights revert back to the author under the condition that you will credit Praxis Magazine Online as the original publisher of said manuscript should it or poems therein be republished.

Manuscript Formatting:

  • Manuscripts should be a minimum of 15 pages and not more than 25 pages in length (not including title page, acknowledgements, table of contents, etc.)
  • The entire manuscript MUST be written in black ink: no colours.
  • Each poem should begin on a new page.
  • Include a title page with the title of the chapbook, your name, nationality, address (including country of residence), phone number and email address.
  • Manuscripts should be single-spaced and written in a standard font and size (12pt. Times New Roman).
  • Do not include pictures or illustrations with or within your manuscript unless they are an essential part of your manuscript.
  • Include a table of contents and, if applicable, an acknowledgements page. Individual poems in the manuscript may have been previously published, but the manuscript as a whole cannot have been already published.
  • You may include a short biographical note, of not more than 100 words, at the end of your manuscript. It should be given its own page.

Find out more on Praxis Magazine Online.