Submissions
Update: Jack is re-opening submissions for a spring 2009 issue. This issue's submissions should loosely follow a resurrected theme: the wilderness. Eco-poetry, fiction, reviews, artwork, photography, journals, and articles are all acceptable. A look at the ecological writings of Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Lew Welch, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, Kenneth Rexroth, John Muir, Robinson Jeffers, Henry David Thoreau, and so on are highly desired. Also interesting would be essays about men like Leo Tolstoy or even Christopher McCandless, who discarded the daily comforts of their rich society in order to experience a more adventurous and spiritual journey into the "nothingness" or possibly "everythingness" of the natural world. I encourage first-person experienced writers who've traveled this path to contribute as well. Political, technological, and moral essays about modern-day problems of global warming, recycling, population, effects of war, agricultural concerns, endangered species, etc., are also welcome. The topic is broad, and both broad-scale and microscopic views of any of the above will be considered for publication.
In order to guarantee a response about your submission, please read and follow all of these guidelines. This list won't take long to read, and I have updated it recently.
See the contact page for e-mail. Send a brief biography with your submission. If I accept your work, you may also send a photograph to be placed on the Credits page.
File formats accepted (send your submission as an attachment, no bigger than 2MBs):
Text: .doc or .rtf
Images: .jpg, .gif, or .png
Don't send submissions within the body of an e-mail message, because my e-mail program might not translate with yours and the formatting will be screwy. Feel free to submit many poems within one Word document, but make sure that you clearly show poem titles, formatting, and so on.
About art: Traditionally, the cover of the magazine and all the major sections of the magazine are a part of a series by one featured artist. I also accept art that will illustrate a particular feature or article; collaborate with the writer.
Read the magazine to get an idea of what we publish. This is a magazine that has traditionally published non-mainstream articles in honor of the Beat Generation and others who liked to experiment. That sometimes makes things controversial, but censorship is for the birds and I like to shock and surprise now and then--as long as the art and writing is intelligently formed. Anyway, that doesn't mean that this magazine is limited to talking about Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. You should submit new things, in order to maintain the fresh style of Jack. Your writing should be dynamic and unpredictable. Also, I'm stealing a phrase from someone I know who was recently soliciting writers:
Do not try to emulate any writer's "style." You should write as yourself and write what comes naturally to you.
Don't submit stuff that's already online elsewhere. I make very few exceptions to this rule.
Do a spell-check and grammar check before sending your submission. Have your piece ready to go. I always let the contributors have a sneak preview of an issue before it goes to publication, but by that time I don't like to change much except for honest mistakes.
About formatting poetry: I'm more apt to accept poetry that isn't all over the page in indentations. The reason is that it's very tedious to format in my HTML program, and it's somewhat difficult to read online. I do accept some, though. Also, please do not use tabs within a document. Just use spaces so that I can see how far lines are intended to be indented.
Timetables: Jack Magazine is not staffed, rather it is published by one individual and is on a flexible schedule.
(c) Joanna BarnumI'm the only "staff" at Jack Magazine, so if you don't hear back from me right away, don't despair; it just means that I'm doing other things. I sometimes take weeks-long breaks from dealing with Jack. Feel free to remind me about your submission.
About doing reviews: Going along with the last point I made about the fact that I'm the only "staff" here, I don't have the time to review for other people (as much as I'd love to). However, Jack does accept reviews, so if you find someone to write a review of a book or film or piece of music, please have that person submit it.
Since Jack is a nonprofit e-zine, there is no monetary payment for submissions. However, I'm happy to plug your art, books, links, and so on.
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