Submission Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in Callaloo and for the opportunity to review your work.

Callaloo is a journal devoted to creative work by and critical studies of the work of African Americans and peoples of African descent throughout the African Diaspora. We accept original submissions of scholarly articles, book reviews, interviews, nonfiction essays, short fiction, poetry, and visual art. Studies of life and culture in the Black world are also published regularly in Callaloo, as is wide-ranging cultural criticism.

Callaloo is published four times a year, and general submissions are accepted year-round.

See below for full submission guidelines.

THEMED ISSUE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Transition: the only constant is change…

n. the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.

v. undergo or cause to undergo a process or period of transition.

We like to believe that things are certain, static, reliable, when in fact everything is constantly in flux. At every moment, our bodies are aging, our children are growing up, our environment and the ground beneath our feet are shifting. We marry, we divorce, we move, we lose jobs or choose new ones, violence enters our lives, we get sick, we lose loved ones, we are failed by our leaders, we are surprised by good fortune. Sometimes the shifts are within us—like a discovery or a loss of faith—other times our world changes around us, leaving us in search of our center. With each shift, we grow and adapt, or we resist.

Callaloo seeks scholarship, personal essays, fiction, poetry, and visual art focused on the question of how we grapple with or choose change, assimilate it, make ourselves anew in the face of it. Submissions might focus on (but should not be limited to):

• Political change, upheaval, transfer of power, and war
• Shifts in family structure
• Immigration, migration, changes in home and language
• Identity and allegiance: sociocultural, gender, racial, spiritual
• Crossing class/education barriers
• The natural environment/landscape/climate
• Birth, aging, illness, and death
• Sexual awakening, discovery
• Moving through developmental stages (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, senior years)
• The impact of technological and scientific discoveries
• Theft and loss

Deadline: May 31, 2024

Submissions accepted here

General Submissions

General submissions are accepted year-round. All manuscripts must be double spaced (except poetry) and submitted only as a Word document (.doc or .docx). Identifying information, including names of authors, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, should not be included in the manuscript. We suggest that prose manuscripts not exceed 6,000 words, excluding the title page, abstract, and references, although we will consider submissions of up to 10,000 words if the piece truly merits the length. All manuscripts should follow the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (3rd edition) and include a works cited and endnotes, not footnotes. Callaloo's Style Guidelines can be downloaded here.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All submissions made to the journal are considered final drafts. In order to honor our publisher's production schedule, manuscripts accepted for publication in Callaloo must be forwarded to our Production Editor immediately, allowing contributors no time to make revisions. Before submitting your work, please be sure that the manuscript being uploaded is the version you wish to ultimately see in print.

Poetry submissions are limited to no more than six poems at a time (all in a single document) with a maximum of twelve poems by an author per calendar year. Additional poems (unless requested by an editor) will automatically be declined. 

Prose submissions are limited to one manuscript per submission with a maximum of three submissions by an author each calendar year. Additional prose submissions (unless requested by an editor) will automatically be declined.

Artwork should be submitted as low-resolution .jpg or PDF files. Artwork must include the following information: title of piece, year created, media, dimensions (in inches), location of the piece.

Manuscripts submitted to Callaloo should not be currently under review by another journal or by a book-length publication. We do not accept simultaneous submissions. Moreover, we do not accept any unsolicited material that has been previously published. 

Please do not send revisions during the time your manuscript is being reviewed; those revisions will not be considered during the review process.

Throughout the calendar year, authors who have submitted manuscripts to Callaloo may track the status of their submissions at any time in our submission management system.

Authors will be contacted after the review process, which takes from two months to one year, on average.

Submissions are accepted via Submittable