Afro-Latinx Anthology

Call for Submissions

Alan Pelaez Lopez, Editor

The editor invites contributions to a multi-genre anthology (Title TBA) of contemporary queer and trans Afro-Latinx writers on memory, care, and futurity published by a notable University Press.

Call for Submission—Deadline: Dec 1, 2020:

This collection of writings will serve as a living archive of contemporary literature by queer and trans Afro-Latinx writers. By “Afro-Latinx,” we mean writers who are Black of Latin American and Caribbean descent. This anthology aims to push the boundaries of how we think, accept, deny, or play with the concept of “Latinx.” The final project will not be a survey of recent literature but a gesture towards an Afro-Latinx aesthetic informed by differently Black experiences. Latin America and the Caribbean, as landscapes, as imagined communities, and as diasporic analytics are continually shapeshifting. Black people in, of, and from Latin America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas are at the heart of this shapeshifting, but the literature of Afro-Latinx writers is— similarly to Black people across the continent— policed, surveilled, and organized by non-Black entities. This anthology seeks to open, nuance and challenge narratives made about us without us. The anthology is not an explanation of what it means to be a queer and/or trans Black person of Latin American and/or Caribbean descent, but a dialogue of how we work with, through, and against memory, care, and futures.

The anthology seeks to answer:

  • How do queer and/or trans Black writers from Latin America, the Caribbean and their diaspora(s) address memory? How do queer and trans embodiments help us understand and/or question the past, the present, and construct a Black queer and trans future?
  • How does Blackness remember geographies we are no longer inhabiting, those we never inhabited, and those we may never know?
  • What are the textures of caring, being cared for, and accepting care as Black queer and/or trans people?
  • What are the uses of care, love, intimacy, and kinship in queer and/or trans Black spaces?
  • And, how do our genders, sexualities, sexual performances, and rejections of all three serve as worldbuilding embodiments for the future?

Mediums:

  • Creative non-fiction (15 pages max)
  • Fiction (15 pages max)
  • Poetry (Send 3-5 poems, no more than 7 pages)
  • Comics (15 pages max—you can send text submission if it’s not inked yet, or send a full first draft)
  • Plays and choreopoems (15 pages max)
  • Performance essays / documentation (20 pages max including images—you must have permission to use all images submitted.)

What we are looking for from contributors:

We are looking for new work (or pieces that have not appeared in a full-length collection that you have retained the rights to) that address memory, care and futures. All work must be submitted in English and you must be open to working with an editor. Pieces that utilize other languages are welcome as long as the piece is primarily in English. This anthology will not publish work that considers Blackness as a monolithic experience. All published writings will receive a modest honorarium.

Submissions and questions: afrolatinxanthology@gmail.com
ANTHOLOGY SUBMISSIONS CLOSED - MANUSCRIPT IN-PROGRESS