Submission Guidelines

Upcoming Issue

Mizna: Twenty Years Deadline: February 28, 2019

Since 1999, Mizna has been dedicated to centering literature, film, and art from our complex communities. For this special twentieth anniversary year issue of our eponymous literary journal, we call for writing that takes stock of the last two decades in Arab America while also looking to the future: Where have we been? Where are we now? Where could we go?

Often written out of histories and vilified in political and cultural discourse, our own definitions of our diverse regions and identities have become steeped in arbitrary colonial terminologies. We are seeking work that challenges and complicates what it means to be of the “Arab and Muslim world” and its diaspora, reshapes limiting terminologies and representations of Arab, Arabized, and Muslim peoples, and imagines spaces, futures, and possibilities for all of us while offering an expansive view of identity, placehood, and self-determination. We also seek writing that captures un- or undertold histories of our peoples, collectives, and movements.

We welcome poetry, stories, creative essays, flash fiction, comics, and other literary interpretation of the topic whether direct or indirect. Mizna continuously seeks original writing for upcoming publications. Contributors do not have to be of Arab descent provided their work is of relevance to the Arab American community. Submissions are accepted throughout the year on an ongoing basis. If you would like your work to be considered for our summer issue, please submit by February 28, 2019.

Send your submission and a short biography (maximum fifty words) via email as an attachment to mizna@mizna.org, and include the word “submission” in the subject line. The attachment(s) must be editable and in standard word-processing program files. PDFs may accompany submitted pieces but must not be sent alone. Please include your name, mailing address, email address, and phone number in your message.

Prose should be double-spaced and limited to 2500 words. Please limit poetry submissions to four poems per submission. Verses exceeding our page width will be treated with a runover indent. Proofs can be made available for author approval before publication.

Simultaneous submissions are allowable, but we ask that you contact us as soon as your work has been accepted elsewhere.

Writers whose work is published in Mizna will receive complimentary copies of the issue in which their work appears, a one-year subscription to the journal, and a modest honorarium.

Due to the volume of submissions received, those not conforming to the above guidelines, as well as material previously published in any other English-language forum, will not be considered.