Submissions
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Please send us your proems that:
- combine the poetic and the prosaic
- are comprised of sentences (not lines/stanzas), though a mixture of sentences AND verse also qualifies (as in haibun, quizzes, and/or some organic form: be inventive)
- if you send us work which is solely written in lines, line breaks, and stanzas, you're wasting your time and ours; PLEASE follow guidelines; there are innumerable journals out there for verse, but this isn't one of them
- are 2 pages or less in length (not because proems longer than 2 pages aren’t proems, but because of the journal's scope/shape)
- explore the potentials of the proem genre (shun lazy reliance on already-proven tricks: poetic, narrative, or otherwise)
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Technical details:
- Please submit 3 - 5 proems, one essay, one interview, or one review (only proem books, performances, or exhibitions please) in one document with file name: Lastname_date
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to submit, click here: https://proem.submittable.com/submit
- Translations are encouraged, but please include the original-language version and the English translation, and be sure you have the original author's permission to publish their work
- File types accepted: .doc, .docx, .pdf
- Please don’t include your name within your document and make sure each proem begins on a new page, preferably Times New Roman, 12 pt font
​ - Please include a cover letter which should also provide:
1) a list of the work you submitted
2) information about whether you’ve simultaneously submitted it
3) a four-sentence bio that tells us more than your publications but
also includes a sentence about what you appreciate/find challenging about
proems
4) your contact info (mailing address, email)
5) please let us know how you heard about PROEM
- Upon acceptance, you'll be asked to submit a black and white author photo .jpeg format (with photo credit) for inclusion in the Contributor's Notes
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please let us know via email if your work has been accepted elsewhere (in which case: Congratulations!)
- Previously published work isn’t accepted (prevpub here means it’s appeared anywhere in the universe besides your journal, a napkin, or a computer file folder)
- Please submit to PROEM only twice per calendar year (deadline for October issue is August 14, for April issue is February 14, though submissions are read year-round)
- Response time varies from three days to three months. If it’s been longer than three months and you haven’t received a reply, please send a respectful email and let us know what you sent and when.
Essays: tell us something we don’t know about proems, yours, somebody else’s, or a thought you had on the way home. Make it funny, or, at the very least, not boring or self-important.
- double space
- use page numbers
- give us a spicy title (steer clear of the dreaded academic Title: Subtitle)
-max 1,500 words, please
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Reviews: don’t use this as a space to bash in someone’s literary skull. Also, not to be used to blow literary smoke. Make us want to understand and read deeper. Give quotes from the source, but be sure to explore how those quotes mean. Same technical guidelines as essays.
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Interviews: be creative. Be interesting. Get us interested in this person’s (these people’s) work. You need to talk about proems (duh?). Same technical guidelines as essays.
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If you’re interested in submitting artwork (cover can be color, interior is b&w), please email 5 .jpegs to proemjournal (at) gmail.com. Pay is one copy of the issue in which your work appears.
There are no submission fees in order to submit to PROEM. It’s already cost you sweat, tears, maybe a boyfriend or a cat, possibly some rainbows or joy, and time, to write your work, so, why be charged money to share it also?
Contributors receive one copy of the issue in which their work appears.
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PROEM gains first-publication rights and the ability to publish accepted work from the print journal on the internet. Upon publication, rights revert back to the author, but, please acknowledge first publication in PROEM in future dispersal of your work.
