hotpoet has launched Equinox, a biannual digital multimedia journal that showcases poets, writers, and artists. While solstices are the extremes of the year, an equinox is equidistant, poised on the edge of one thing or another, the cusp of change or transformation. With this archetypal significance in mind, Equinox strives to explore the contemplative and motivational power of writers and artists; to celebrate how word and image can create a world and then change it.  

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Submission
We invite you to send us your poems, flash fiction, flash essay, photography, and art. We look for contemplative, argumentative, globally aware, despair-resistant, and apathy-abolishing works. 

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Submission Periods and Publication Dates:

We accept submissions via Submittable. 

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​Spring Submission: December 1st through February 18th with a publication date of March 20th.

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Spring Theme:

A successful film director and producer once said, “Creativity is a mansion. If you’re empty in one room, all you have to do is go out into the hall and enter another room that’s full” (F. Gary Gray). Sounds easy, right? If one room in your psyche is uninspiring, just find another that offers you a plush parlor, a secret garden, an environment conducive to creating art. 

 

But maybe the hallway you go out into is dark. Perhaps it’s even haunted. And what if the door to that other room is boarded shut? Or you are afraid to confront what’s in there? Like Stephen King puts it, “Nothing is so frightening as what’s behind the closed door.” 

 

It can be an act of courage to open doors and go into unknown rooms. Perhaps those rooms are gateways to self-knowledge and growth, both as a person and as an artist. On the other hand, they could be portals to dark places that you have tried to avoid. Or, the door you try might open to an empty room, one that invites you to create a safe space for yourself where your needs are met and your spirit is nurtured. 

 

You will not know what awaits you until you open the doors to these inner rooms. 

 

Since our last few Equinox themes have focused on the outside world, the upcoming issue will be devoted to interior spaces, whether literal or metaphorical. The theme for Equinox, Volume 8, in the spring of 2025 is “Inner Chambers, Secret Rooms.” 

 

As always, you are free to respond to this theme in any way that is meaningful to you. We are eager to visit the rooms you remember, the chambers you imagine, the havens you invent. We know the tour you take us on is going to be fascinating. May your explorations lead you to an abundance of creative energy and power. Don’t forget your flashlight!

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Fall Submission Period: June 9th through August 12th.

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Fall Theme: To be announced

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Submission Guidelines:

1. You may submit up to 3 pieces in any one genre (poetry, flash prose, or image) for a reading fee of $5, which will be used toward ongoing programs and publications at hotpoet, and which will fund a $100 “best in show” prize for every category of work (poetry, flash prose, and image) in each edition of Equinox.

2. You may submit more than three pieces or in multiple genres, but separate submissions are needed to do so and separate reading fees will be assessed for each.

3. We do not accept previously published work, whether online, self-published, in chapbooks, in anthologies, or in literary journals. We do accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you immediately withdraw any piece that gets accepted elsewhere for publication.

4. All submissions must be in standard font and formatting. Poetry should be single spaced with double spacing between stanzas. Prose should be double-spaced and include a word count. There is no line limit for poetry, but flash fiction and flash essay should be limited to 700 words. Images should be in png format.

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