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. 

 

Fall Submission: June 15th through August 15th with a publication date of September 21st.

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Fall Theme: The theme for our fall 2023 issue of Equinox is “Into the thicket.” Why “the thicket”? As always, this theme is open-ended, as the thicket can invoke multiple interpretations metaphorically and symbolically. A thicket, by definition, is dense and daunting—full of conflicting, challenging, and even painful forces (brambles, biting insects, even predatory animals). Yet it is teeming with life, beauty, possibility. The thicket is also archetypal—the dark unknown—and even magical (think Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, witches and elves). It is home to outlaws and outliers—another dimension to
explore. We can’t wait to read your rich and original reflections on this multi-faceted theme.

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Spring Submission: December 20th through February 20th, with a publication date of March 20th.

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Spring 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 500 words. Images should be in png format.

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