Open Calls for Materials

Aloha, Fam! Thank you so much for your interest in being featured on our radio show/podcast. Find our open calls for materials below. Email us at itslitwithphdj@gmail.com with any questions! Our current themed call(s) for materials are below along with our open, general call:

FREE PALESTINE / CEASEFIRE NOW The inimitable adrienne maree brown put out a series of dope prompts for writing and dreaming that do exactly what we’d been hoping to do. Have you written/will you, dear ones, write something in response to these calls and send it our way? Will you send us a song too, and a brief bio so we can credit you? Rolling deadline, but pieces that reach us by December 1 will go into the inaugural episode connected to these calls. adrienne maree brown’s prompts for Sunday writing/dreaming: “I don’t know what the next American revolution is going to be like, but we might be able to imagine it if your imagination were rich enough.” Grace Lee Boggs “Nothing happens in the ‘real’ world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.” Gloria Anzaldua Imagine if everyone who has attended a march were to participate in a strategic general strike, refusing to work and using that time for bombastic direct actions that transform our grief into new standards. Imagine if we applied the energy of all recent successful worker strikes on behalf of all peoples experiencing gen🫣cide supported/demanded by U.S. interests. “A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind.” Grace Lee Boggs Imagine if we decided en masse that the 66% of us (and rising) who want a ceasefire would be war tax resisters in 2024 and we committed now. Imagine making our elected officials snap out of their political delusions and realize life as normal will not continue while they financially abuse their citizens into paying for gen🫣cide. “There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth.” June Jordan Imagine a functional democracy where elected officials represent their constituents or lose their jobs. “If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn’t give him power.” Octavia Butler Imagine a multi-party system where evil (in speech, act, or investment) wasn’t the only viable option. Imagine bringing U.S. society to a halt until we stopped exporting our violent vengeful and/or vigilante justice. Imagine this portal of overwhelming grief making us realize never again has to be a practice, making us start anew so that gen🫣cide and w🫶🏽r are no longer acceptable, debatable human behaviors. “When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces.” Octavia Butler resources from @beautifultroublehq and @wartaxresister HOW TO SEND IN YOUR WORK: Email itslitwithphdj@gmail.com a recording of your piece + a link to a song you want played after your recording, and short bio that tells people about you, including your pronouns. TIPS FOR RECORDING: Most folks record themselves on their smart phones (small-kind background noises—like chickens, birds, young folks running around—are just fine, but maybe try to avoid big noises—like doors slamming, dump trucks getting wheelies off potholes, etc). Please begin your recording by saying “This is [your name] and this is my [poem/short story/CNF piece] titled [title].” MP3s and MP4s welcome (and likely any other audio file you got is just fine). Email us if you’re not sure how to do this and we will help out!

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GENERAL CALL

Because art, like the personal, is always political, we are interested in lit with a purpose.

We want to feature lit that draws ancestors close, that reminds us of how they hold us and that in telling their stories we can hold them too, that underscores our genealogical connections, that reflects lived experiences in the body (that oftentimes-fraught domain), that speaks out against racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, that looks attraction and desire in the face, that remembers how to slow dance, that tends garden boxes for decolonial love, that creates new space, that builds community, that centers love of land and ocean, that centers Oceania, that knows the power of our imaginations and is devoted to genuine security, that remembers that what it means to be a grove of trees, that invites us to talk with those difficult, complex emotions we’ve been avoiding and reminds us that we’re safe to feel them, that reminds us that one of the world’s greatest fictions is that we are alone. We are interested in featuring lit that reminds us that we are not alone.

We are also still inviting submissions that address the theme Water Is Life and the love of water. For these particular submissions, we are especially interested in pieces that are in support of water protectors, at Standing Rock, on Maui, worldwide, that are about the power of nonviolent resistance, including what it means to be prayerful and guided and vigilant within ongoing movements for genuine security, that speak truth to power, that center love of water and land and ancestors.  

And, so it’s known, we’re excited to feature Indigenous writers, people-of-color writers, LGBTQI writers, intersectional writers, the-personal-is-political writers, ally-is-a-verb writers, drawing-on-our-ancestors writers, heart-wrenching writers, the-revolution-won’t-be-televised writers, sexy writers, boundary-exploding writers, healing writers, community-building writers, damn-the-man-and-the-empire writers, all-of-the-above writers.

And we’re super excited to hear the musical choices you pair with your dope writing.

If you are interested in being featured on a full episode of It’s Lit, email us at itslitwithphdj@gmail.com for additional guidelines and our author questions. We’re happy to walk you through the process!