Submission Guidelines

Submit Your work

If you would like to submit your work to be included in The Spectrum Spark, please fill out the following form: https://forms.office.com/r/NFzEBRN7Gi

Please make sure your piece meets the detailed submission guidelines posted below. If you have questions about these guidelines, please reach out to us at spectrumsparkmines@gmail.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Genres

We accept literature and visual media in the following forms and more:

  • Original short fiction
  • Poetry
  • Editorials
  • Memoirs
  • Photography
  • Fashion showcases
  • Painted or drawn visual art
  • Comics
  • Screen plays
  • Music and voice recordings
Detailed Submission Guidelines

For detailed submission guidelines for literature/written media, click here.

For detailed submission guidelines for visual media, click here.

For detailed submission guidelines for audio media, click here.

For detailed submission guidelines for video media, click here.

Submission Timeline

Issue 4 (Fall 2022): 

Issue 4.1
Submissions Open: Now 
Submissions Due: TBD (likely until sometime in early fall)
Submissions Acceptance Decisions: TBD
Submit to the Rest of Staff for Review/Release: TBD

Possible Themes

Below is a short list of examples of possible themes for submissions. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, and other themes will also be considered.

  • Acceptance and isolation
  • Self-discovery
  • Relationship between identities and labels
  • Intersectionality between LGBTQ+ identities and other identities such as race, religion, class, ability, etc.
  • Queer relationships
  • Coming out
  • Authenticity at home / at school / in the workplace
  • Community (operating within old communities or forming new ones)
  • Found family
  • Personal experience within LGBTQ+ current events
  • Critiques of media representations of LGBTQ+ folks
  • Drawing attention to the ways that transphobia / biphobia / homophobia show up in our lives and how we can dismantle them

Content Advisory

No fan content. If the copyright has expired on the content your fan creation is based off of, we may consider it.

Must have queer/gender identity and sexual minority themes.

Tags required: Permitted, but needs a tag

  • Menstruation
  • Vomit/excrement/bodily fluids
  • Religious themes

Soft limits: Allowed to be implicitly referenced, but submissions with this type of content will be limited. Trigger warnings required.

  • Fatphobia/body negativity
  • Mentions of self-harm
  • Eating disorders
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Abuse (emotional, physical, financial, etc.)
  • Nudity (context, tastefulness, and media-dependent)
  • Slurs (depends on severity/frequency/context)
  • Heavy dysphoria
  • Assault
  • Frequent references to anxiety and/or depression
  • Alcohol/recreational drug use

Hard limits: We will not print this. 

  • Graphic/explicit sex
  • Graphic rape and sexual assault
  • Graphic depictions of self-harm and suicide
  • Graphic/glorified violence
  • Pedophilia/incest
  • Drug addiction
  • Hard drug use
  • Explicitly homophobic/racist/bigoted themes
    • Obviously homophobia will be represented but never in a positive light