Call For Submissions: Deep Times “Youth” Issue

DEEP TIMES:  The Journal of the Work That Reconnects
Fall “Youth” Issue 2020
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: extended to AUGUST 1

SUBMISSION FORM 

SUBMISSION CONTEXT AND INSTRUCTIONS:

This issue of Deep Times is opening a portal. We open this portal between the young people* of now, living amidst the Great Unravelling and the Great Turning, and the future ones of 2160, who are visiting us here in 2020 from a devastated future, where just a few people have crafted a livable world amidst the ruins of the old. They come with warnings, wisdom, insight and guidance.

An alternate future is still possible. Right now, in this time of pandemic and rebellion, everything is at stake and there is everything to play for. Collage by Patricia St Onge (from previous issue of Deep Times) We believe in the power of this collaboration between our generations across time. The purpose of this publication is to speak to/draw/describe/inhabit what is needed to avert the devastation we are being warned about and bring about a more just and vibrant future, seven generations from now.

You may write/draw/paint/meme from the perspective of your present-day self or as a visiting future being. If it is supportive, you can allow some of the below prompts to guide you:

• From the perspective of a future being — You came from the future, a future in which the great transition to life sustaining society failed. In that failure, the world came to peace and understood how and why it failed. You are one of a diverse cast sent from the future to guide the young people of today in avoiding the worst of what you and your ancestors have lived. You as a submitter are going to tell us the story of our failure and guide us towards the Great Turning from exactly where we are in the world today. Inhabit this being of the future, form them, embody them and come forth with their contribution to our time.
• From your own present-day perspective — You, as only you know, are alive in such uncertain times – where a global pandemic has worsened ongoing destruction of ecosystems and communities already besieged by racism and inequality. The future ones are amazed by you and your capacity for resilience in these times. What do you want them to know about being alive right now? What ideas do you have for averting the future they have lived? What do you want to ask them?

* Young people = self-defined! Please submit if you feel called.

Submission Details:

Submissions due by August 1. Ideas or finished pieces welcome, we’re happy to be in dialogue with you to help create a submission. Send all submissions and proposals via this Google form. Send any queries or questions to: [email protected]. 

As this is Deep Times: the Journal of the Work That Reconnects, we welcome pieces that are explicitly connected to the Spiral or other themes from the WTR. At the same time, we welcome anyone who feels called to this conversation, whether you have experience in the WTR or not. We lift up in particular that our generation has been outspoken in integrating anti-oppression and decolonization into the WTR, where not all of us have felt welcome. As such we are particularly welcoming submissions from people of color, queer folks, disabled folks, people from the Global South and others whose stories and wisdom we need to be centering in this work.

Submission guidelines:

• All media that can be made digital welcome (poems, essays, first-person narratives/memoirs, slogans, audio recordings, memes, visuals, tiktok, twitter streams, toilet paper self portraits, do whatever is publishable / on theme)
• If written, max 1500 words (no minimum!)

Some potential support for brainstorming an idea:

• Define the storyteller: It could be you, or someone that you create or a blend. We want to hear who is the character that you’ll be living into.
• What identity, community, culture will you represent?
• What is a discussion topic / core insight you’ll elaborate upon?
• Define one feature of the future devastated peace-world that you’re carrying to the present / one feature of your present world you wish the future ones to know?
• Utilize the spiral from the Work That Reconnects: gratitude, honoring our pain, seeing with new eyes, and going forth (define this more?)
• What medium will you use to present your piece?