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The eclectic tastes of the editors of Blood Lotus welcome submissions from both established and emerging writers. Writing on all subjects will be considered so long as it is not blatantly offensive (i.e., discriminates on the basis of gender, age, race, class, sexual orientation, etc.) and has not been previously published.
There are two things you can do to ensure that your work will be accepted for publication in Blood Lotus. The first is to follow our submission guidelines thoroughly. The second is to send excellent writing.
Poetry Submissions
- Poetry will only be read via bloodlotuspoetry@gmail.com.
- No attachments. No exceptions. We will delete them without responding.
- No more than five poems.
- Please introduce yourself briefly and list pertinent publications credits.
- Advice from poetry editors: All we care about is that the poetry we publish is really good and doesn't sound like something that's already been written. We don't care if it rhymes or doesn't, is formal or free verse, is lyric or narrative, is traditional or experimental, etc. We want the very best draft(s) of your very best poem(s), and nothing less.
Fiction Submissions
- Fiction will only be read via bloodlotusfiction@gmail.com.
- No attachments. No exceptions. We will delete them without responding.
- Must be stand-alone, self-contained short stories, not novel excerpts.
- Must be no more than 4,500 words.
- Please introduce yourself briefly, list pertinent publication credits, and give a one-sentence synopsis of your story.
- Advice from fiction editor: Remember, good stories have an engaging character who faces tremendous obstacles to achieve a desired goal. All stories must be carefully revised and polished before being submitted.
The Gray Area (only one to two pieces taken per issue, so be very selective)
We want to pad our PDF walls with the best writing we come across, without the constraints of defined genres, so if you've written a fabulous one-act play or travel essay, or you've recently recorded a YouTube video of your most provocative slam performance, or you have the goosebumps but just aren't sure what it is (flash fiction? poem in prose? camera phone pic of your most ingenious magnetic poem yet?), we'll consider it!
- Gray Area submissions will only be read via bloodlotusjournal@gmail.com.
- No attachments. No exceptions. We will delete them without responding. If the work requires an attachment, query us first.
- Please introduce yourself briefly, list pertinent publication credits, and give a short synopsis of the piece and how you, the author, define it.
- If you submitted a piece as fiction or poetry and we believe it is more suitable for The Gray Area, we may propose publication as such.
Art submissions
- Art submissions will be viewed only via bloodlotusjournal@gmail.com.
- Send only original scanned art, photography, graphic art, etc. in jpg. format.
- Advice from editors: We love photography, paintings, watercolors, collage, abstracts, etc. We are not into fantasy or graphic art.
A few more notes on submissions in general:
- If you direct your submission to the wrong email address, you are risking that it will be misplaced and you will not get a response. Take care when addressing your submission.
- We are not likely to publish you in more than one issue. If you are a previous Blood Lotus contributor, be assured that we like your work, but please respect our editorial wishes to promote a variety of writers by waiting a significant amount of time (like, a year, preferably longer) before sending us more work (which, chances are, will have to be extra excellent to be accepted).
- Please submit only once per reading period. In other words, if you haven’t heard back from us yet regarding your first submission, hold off on sending the second one to avoid confusion.
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted but only if noted in the initial email and only if the author agrees to notify us immediately if the piece is accepted elsewhere. Previously published work, however, will not be accepted.
- While we are committed to being accessible, personable, and writer-friendly, our primary objectives are a fast turn-around time and the production of a high-quality collection of writing every three months. So if you submit to Blood Lotus, you'll receive, within three months, either an acceptance email or a notification that the new issue has been published. We assume if you're submitting work to us, you've read and enjoyed previous issues of the journal and want to know when the next issue is up, and rather than "reject" you, we want to encourage you to stick with us, read more issues, and perhaps get a better idea of what we want to publish should you decide to resubmit in the future.
A note on querying:
- Please wait three months before querying, and please designate Query in the subject line of your email and give us the date of your original submission. Responding to queries sometimes takes some time, so please be patient. Reading a large volume of submissions takes the same amount of time whether the journal is print or electronic, so please trust us to respond to your submissions within a reasonable time frame, and remember, you are free to simultaneously submit!
We unfortunately cannot offer compensation outside the realm of publicity at this time, but we promise to present and promote your work with the professionalism it deserves! We do nominate our contributors for prizes, including the Pushcart Prize.
Blood Lotus acquires first time North American rights upon publication, as well as the right to archive your work online.
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