[CLOSED] Submissions Open for Vol. 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing

[16 January 2020] We are no longer accepting submissions for volume 7. A huge thank you to everyone who has sent in their writing. You’ll be hearing from us soon!

We’re currently accepting submissions for Volume 7 of the Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing. Our theme for this edition of New Writing is: Identity.

As always, you’re free to use the theme as a starting point, an ending, or as the nucleus, as long as you ensure that the connection is clear. Do the write thing.

Our Judges

Photograph by Tejinder Singh.

Mridula Koshy is a writer and library movement activist. Her short story collection If It Is Sweet won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Vodafone Crossword Award. Her novel Not Only The Things That Have Happened was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award. Her latest novel is Bicycle Dreaming. She runs The Community Library Project, which advocates for free, publicly owned libraries that are open to all.

Sumana Roy is the author of How I Became a Tree, a work of nonfiction, Missing: A Novel, and Out of Syllabus: Poems.

The Rules

1. All entries should be sent to write@helterskelter.in on or before January 15, 2020.

2. Emails should be sent using the subject line ‘Submission: Volume Seven’.

3. Please be sure to state your full name, age, location, and occupation in your email. Please also include a photograph and a short bio of yourself (two or three lines; written in third-person).

4. All entries must be sent to us as email attachments in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) format only. Do not send us documents in PDF, TXT, or RTF format. Do NOT paste your entry in the body of the email or send us links to Google Docs files. If you use Google Docs, please export the file as a Word file before sending it to us.

5. Writers must be Indian citizens and/ or based in India.

6. Short-fiction pieces should not exceed 2,000 words in length.

7. Poems should not exceed in length two pages of a standard Microsoft Word document (Times New Roman/ Arial; font size 12pt; double-spaced). If the poem you have written exceeds these specifications, send us an extract for approval.

8. We will only consider stories and poems written in English for this anthology.

9. We reserve the right to decide on the format and medium of the anthology, when it is published.

10. Writers retain all rights to their submitted pieces. However, we insist that all submissions (short-fiction or poetry) be previously unpublished—this includes your blog, and any other online or print publications. Once published in Helter Skelter, should writers seek to publish the same work elsewhere, it must be accompanied by a note stating that it was originally published in Helter Skelter Magazine along with the date of publication and a link to the piece.

11. For writers who intend to submit the same story/ poem to other publications at the same time: please let us know immediately if your work gets accepted for publication elsewhere (before we accept/ reject the story, that is).

12. Each writer can submit up to five entries in all.

13. We reserve the right to edit all submissions for language and grammar, and to suit the presentation and available space. Whenever possible, the author will be consulted on any additions or changes. In any disputes, the judgement of the editors/ judges will be final.