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Upcoming Submission Deadlines: June 1st, October 1st, 2012
Submission Guidelines
“Transition aims to speak to the broader intelligentsia and the educated lay public through jargon-free, readable prose that provides both insight and pleasure.”
—Tommie Shelby, Glenda Carpio, and Vincent Brown
Although Transition is unable to pay contributors, we provide the opportunity to reach a broad, international audience. Contributors receive a complimentary copy of the issue in which their work appears.
Prose:
Transition is a unique forum for fresh perspectives on global issues, literature and art, cultures and people, with an emphasis on Africa and the Diaspora. Unlike academic journals, we believe that the mode of expression is just as important as the content. Academic clichés, locutions, and jargon, in addition to authorial intrusions such as “I am going to argue...,” “In the second section of this paper I will...,” etc., are best avoided, since they tend to disrupt the narrative flow.
We expect the nonfiction pieces published in Transition to display the virtues of high-quality literary fiction, especially narrative prose, which leads the reader naturally from one sentence to the next. Rich description and attention to voice, tone, imagery, and word choice are all appreciated. We also welcome provocative points of view that stimulate debate.
Please note:
As a nonacademic journal, we do not run footnotes or give strict bibliographic documentation for the ideas expressed in our essays. One way to cite quotations or reference scholars is by incorporating the reference into the sentence; for example, “As Edward Said reminds us in Culture and Imperialism, ‘Appeals to the past are among the commonest of strategies in interpretations of the present.’” We are available to help writers navigate this particular aspect of our style guidelines.
Poetry:
We publish poetry from and about Africa and the Diaspora. For non-English-language poetry, we prefer to run the original language version along with its literary translation into English.
Review Essays:
Transition publishes thoughtful and thought-provoking reviews of books worth reading, films and performances worth seeing, and art exhibits worth visiting. Although constructive criticism of the works recommended is also appreciated, we usually feature review essays that point our readers toward works that deserve their attention, though the recommendation may of course be tempered by criticism.
As with our other prose, we expect our reviews to be gracefully written. We prefer to publish reviews that stand on their own as essays; in other words, they should be of interest to our readers whether or not they are familiar with the reviewed work. Most of our reviews fall somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 words.
To submit work to Transition:
Email submissions are preferred. If submitting by mail, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope to receive a response from Transition. Mail submissions to:
The Editors
Transition
104 Mt. Auburn Street, 3R
Cambridge, MA 02138
Manuscripts will not be returned. You will receive confirmation of receipt and notification of editorial decision after review of your work. Please note that due to the high volume of submissions we receive, we are not able to respond to requests for status updates.
For all submissions, please include the following information in your email or cover letter and in the top left corner of the first page of all documents:
- Name
- Address
- Email address
- Word count
- Date of submission
Please also include a title with each work.
Artwork and Photography :
We continuously seek new, unpublished work from photographers and artists and look for images that inform, innovate, startle, and speak.
To submit your work and be considered for publication in future issues of Transition, email the following to transition@fas.harvard.edu with “Image Submission” in the subject line:
- Five to fifteen high-resolution (300 dpi) images for which you would grant Transition permission to publish
- A short bio in a MSWord document
- Contact info, including name, address, email and phone
Should your image(s) be selected to appear in Transition, a member of the staff will contact you to make further arrangements for publication.
Although Transition is unable to pay contributors, we provide the opportunity to reach a broad, international audience by including a brief profile on each artist whose work is used to complement our text pieces.
Please note that all artwork and photography in Transition appears in black and white, and we can use only high-resolution images (300 dpi). Others will be discarded.
Transition staff reserves the right to disregard any submissions which do not conform to these guidelines. Your compliance with these requests will help to streamline our submission process and will ensure timely review of and response to your work.
Submissions are reviewed and selected by our Editors on a quarterly basis. After initial confirmation that we received your work, please expect to wait 2-3 months for a response to your submission.
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