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Queer Ecology: Call for Flash Fiction Submissions
SUBMISSIONS CLOSED
The current round of Flash Fiction submissions has been closed. Please check back in in early 2023 for our next round. Thank you to those who have submitted! Stay tuned to our website and social media updates for the announcement of our selection for the Queer Ecology theme.
“We are powerful because we have survived, and that is what it is all about—survival and growth.”
Audre Lorde
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA—indeed, in many parts of Asia and around the world—colonialism has left a scathing mark of anti-LGBT violence. Many of our queer-friendly indigenous traditions were erased or fell by the wayside as we play catch-up with the West. As this was happening, our environment became stripped of its sustainability as we were forced to tear down our forests and ancestral lands to make way for industrial plantations.
These violence are happening to this day. Anti-LGBT sentiments are rampant in Southeast Asia, and industrial plantations are degrading our environment, causing mass migration and displacing indigenous people from their land. Despite the existence of Đạo Mẫu practitioners, Bissu priests, sacred Ardhanarishvara statues, gender-nonconforming dancers, and others, and despite the abundance of indigenous wisdom that emphasises respect for the environment, oppression and exploitation continue to happen on a daily basis.
In this round of Flash Fiction series, we invite Southeast Asian writers to tell fictional (or fictionalised) stories about the intersections of queer and environmental struggles. Examples of some themes that we are looking for include, but are not limited to:
- indigenous cultures and how they relate to queerness and environmental care;
- ecological exploitation and suppression of queer cultures;
- how ecology has always been a queer discipline;
- queer communities that foreground ecological protection;
- etc.
We are looking for fiction of 300 to 500 words in length, which can be written in any format. Standard prose, conversations, email exchanges, interview transcripts, pieces of fictional news media—you name it. The story can be of any genre, from fantasy, science fiction, to slice of life. As Audre Lorde’s quote above shows, we prefer stories that are hopeful, but this, too, is not a set limitation.
Submit your story via email at pitches@newnaratif.com no later than Friday, December 9th, 23:59 PM MYT. Selected applicants will be notified of their status of acceptance no later than Monday, December 19th, 23:59 MYT. We accept submissions in English and Bahasa Indonesia. Click here to read our selections for the previous round of Flash Fiction, Reimagine Southeast Asia.
We read every submission, but due to the number of submissions we received, we may not respond to every one of them. If you have not received any news by that time, we apologise that we have not selected your story for publication.
Up to eight selected pieces will undergo editing, development, and translations throughout the month of December. The stories will be released on the website in February 2023 as well as in audio format in the coming months.
We look forward to amplifying your voices of intersectional struggles.
All Stories
Browse New Naratif’s Flash Fiction collection from Speculative Futures in the Climate Crisis to Reimagine Southeast Asia.
![[Re:] #302: Happy Birthday! (6)](https://newnaratif-staging.ue1.developbb.dev/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/925F07A8-B59A-4F91-B62E-4ABB3688E3C6-1024x576.png)
