Lockjaw Magazine Submission Guidelines

To begin, obviously yes of course we want Your Best Work. But mostly we want Your Strange Work, Your Uncertain Work, the thing you made that made you feel differently about yourself for a while after you made it.

We don’t care about genre. There are lots of places to get Poetry and Fiction and while we’ll almost certainly publish some, we’re more interested in your unclassifiables, your orphans. This isn’t to say we’re averse to stanzas or stories (we’re not), but if you’re sending us a formal sonnet about your dog because that’s what poetry is supposed to look like, we will probably acknowledge that your dog seems awesome and politely leave it at that. We’re interested in the words and the sounds and the images, not in how closely they align with conventional interpretations of genre.

We don’t care about genre, but we do care about media, which is why we are equally interested in visual art and music. Lockjaw is a venue for many methods of expression, and we place equal value on all of them.

We want ephemera. Work that feels like ruins. Not unpolished or unfinished due to a lack of effort or resolve, but work that feels like it was finished, was perfect, has since decayed. Work that is both human and alien. Sharp knives, cold water. Beauty under glass. Soft and stark and complex and pitiless, all at the same time. Easy, right? No problem.

We have a strong preference for the experimental and postmodern, though we value clarity and coherence. We like weirdness, but not exclusively for its own sake. Unless the writing is killer. Unless the image is unshakable. Unless the sound won’t get out of our heads. We’re not by any means snobs, but we’re not looking for straight science fiction, or romance, or fantasy, or anything that has its own special shelf in a bookstore or label in a record shop. We’re more than happy to suggest other journals that may really want your historical fiction, though.

We will of course read/look at/listen to anything you send us. You are doing us an enormous honor by submitting your work to us. Anyone who makes you feel otherwise doesn’t even deserve to look at it. Everyone who reads and edits for Lockjaw does it because they love creative work, and gets a vague narcissistic thrill out of being afforded the pleasure of seeing that work before the rest of the world. We have two literary editors. They have credentials, but if their publications and whether or not they have letters after their names are what will motivate you to submit, please note that we will not be considering whether or not you have publications or letters after your name. In fact, we prefer to be in the dark about you until the time comes for us to ask you about yourself; we’re only interested in your work and won’t be looking at your accomplishments (but please know we’re very proud of you.) We have a visual art/music editor. He’s pretty much the king.

We have a preference for shorter work, though again we’re happy to look at anything you’d like to send us. Submit up to 5 things as a single Word document; to make it easier for the readers please make it as clear as possible where pieces begin and end. For visual art, submit up to 5 high-resolution .jpg or .pdf images (please use this method for submitting concrete poetry or other highly visual writing as well). For music, please submit between 6-15 minutes as an .mp3 or .flac file(s). Please don’t put your name or other identifying information in the body of your submission (but put your last/preferred name in the subject line of your submission email). We don’t require bios for submission, though we will ask you for something if your work is selected for publication. We accept simultaneous submissions.

All work will be read/seen/heard by any member of the Lockjaw staff that wants to read/see/hear it (our editors have their areas of specialization but we’re pretty sure artists can like poetry and prose writers can like music.) Our submissions system will look like this for our first issue: you’ll make something you really, really like. You’ll email it to us (submissions@lockjawmagazine.com). We’ll take it from there. Please allow up to 3 months for response, though we’re hopeful response times will be much faster. If you submit very close to the deadline, the response time will be longer (so send it earlier.)

 

Our philosophy could reasonably be summarized as:

We don’t want you to show your work. We want you to show your bones.

Our philosophy could reasonably be summarized as:

We want the things that make you uncertain of who you are.

Our philosophy could reasonably be summarized as:

If you can reasonably summarize it, it’s not worth doing.

Thank you for your interest in Lockjaw Magazine. We are interested in you.

 

THE BASICS

  • Lockjaw Magazine is a biannual online journal including literary ephemera, art, and music
  • Open submission period Sept 15-Nov 30/all submissions to submissions@lockjawmagazine.com
    • LITERARY: up to 5 pieces in a single .doc or .docx file
    • ART: up to 5 high-resolution .jpg or .pdf images (please use for all work in which layout is a critical consideration, i.e. concrete poetry or any strongly visual writing)
    • MUSIC: 6-15 minutes as a high-quality .mp3 or .flac file(s)
  • We accept simultaneous submissions/please let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere
  • No identifying information in the body of the submission/last or preferred name in the subject line
  • No bio required/requested unless selected for publication
  • Please allow us up to 3 months to respond/short inquiries welcome after that

 

 

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