We publish work by Lesbians. We are particularly interested in work that reflects the diversity of our experiences: as Lesbians of color, ethnic Lesbians, Jewish, Arab, old, young, working class, poverty class, disabled, and fat Lesbians. We welcome experimental work. We will not print anything that is oppressive or demeaning to Lesbians or women, or that perpetuates stereotypes. We keep an open and critical dialogue on all the issues that affect our lives, joy, and survival.
Sinister Wisdom acquires first North American serial rights for all work that we publish. By acquiring first North American serial rights, authors guarantee that publication in Sinister Wisdom will be the first publication in North America. That is, the work has not appeared previously in another journal, in a book, online, or in other forms of publication. In rare instances, Sinister Wisdom will reprint work that has been previously published. Authors should discuss with the editor and publisher PRIOR to submission.
Many questions about rights are answered here: https://www.pw.org/content/copyright
Upon publication, all rights revert to the author.
Jewish Dykes Unite!
Call for Submissions
Sinister Wisdom is seeking poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and genre-bending works from Jewish dykes of all kinds — and we mean all. Jews of all origins, converts, Jews with tattoos, patrilineal Jews, Jews who have never stepped foot in a synagogue before, etc. No matter how religious you are or how much you may feel like a “fake Jew,” submit to us!
We want your Jewish lesbian joy and your Jewish lesbian pain. We want your yearning, your gossip, your fashion tips, your love stories, your too-good-to-keep-to-yourself lesbian sexcapades and fantasies. Tell us about your grief, your confusion, your dating horror stories, your anxiety, your heartbreak, your intergenerational trauma.
Jewish lesbians of color, disabled Jewish lesbians, gender non-confirming Jewish lesbians, Jewish lesbians with various marginalized identities — how do various facets of your identity interact with and inform each other?
How does Judaism influence the way you think about your body? About sex and pleasure? About aesthetic expression (fashion, piercings, tattoos, etc.)? Trans and gender-expansive dyke angels, how does your Jewish identity relate to your gender identity?
How do Jewish rituals appear in your life? How do you find yourself queering these rituals and Judaism as a whole? How do you read, relate to, and interpret Jewish texts as a Jewish lesbian?
We want your thoughts on current issues affecting Jews and lesbians everywhere. Yes, write to us about Israel and Palestine! How has your relationship to the world shifted as a Jewish lesbian after October 7th? We are particularly interested in the perspectives of Jewish protestors, students, and educators.
What is dating like as a Jewish lesbian? How does your identity affect the way you relate to others, or the way they relate to you? Where do you find community and belonging? How have your queer friendships shaped, challenged, or redefined your understanding of love, identity, and joy?
What challenges or joys arise from embodying or engaging with butch/femme identities in contemporary Jewish and lesbian spaces? How has butch/femme culture evolved or been reimagined in your own relationships or communities?
What role does ancestry, biological and otherwise, play in your life? What do you think is important to hold on to from our Jewish lesbian past and elders?
WE WANT YOUR ART. Bold, abundant, creepy, freaky, sad, loving, angry, hot. Show us what you got! (The issue editors will select two color pieces of art work - one image for the front cover and one for the back cover. Interior art work will be reproduced in black and white.)
We want your weird stuff, your silly stuff: give us the work you can’t describe, your craziest forms and strangest ideas, your diary confessions, your most outlandish dreams and fantasies, your notes app poetry — the stuff you think no one will understand.
We want to hear you argue with yourself, question and challenge tradition, say things that contradict each other, get lost and confused, leave things unresolved — that’s what Judaism is all about.
If you are Jewish and lesbian and your work does not sound like or address any of the above, please submit to us anyway! We want to know what Jewish lesbians, particularly of younger generations, are thinking, feeling, talking, kvetching, and kvelling about. We want YOU.
Images should be .jpg or .tif files only, and be of print-quality resolution, sized at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).
The deadline for submissions is June 20, 2025. The anticipated publication date for this issue is in 2027.
Guest Editors:
SJ Waring (she/her) is a recent Smith College graduate and Jewish femme poet based in New York. Her work has previously been published in Hey Alma and ARTS By the People’s Moving Words project, among others.
alexa hulse (she/they) is a nice Jewish femme living in Charlotte, North Carolina. By day, she is the Editorial Assistant and a frequent contributor at Lilith magazine. Outside of Lilith, she writes sonnets, looks at the moon, and goes to see a new movie with her friends every week.
Sinister Wisdom’s Body of Land issue will take readers to a different place—the continent of so-called ‘Australia’. Body of Land seeks to showcase diasporic and First Nations lesbian, bisexual, queer, trans and gender-nonconforming perspectives in so-called ‘Australia’. As individuals both situated at the intersection of marginalised identities, we want this issue to provide an outlet for lesbian/queer voices that are too often overlooked in a context where whiteness dominates queer representation. Thus, we hope this anthology will carve out a space for these voices to fill the pages of an established publication like Sinister Wisdom.
The theme, Body of Land, was chosen as a framework for exploring the significance of ‘place’ from diasporic and First Nations lesbian/queer standpoints in so-called ‘Australia’, with ‘land’ acting as a throughline between disparate experiences and histories. We define diaspora as communities with cultural ties outside of the lands on which they reside; as individuals with experiences and feelings of cultural difference and/or unbelonging within the hegemonic culture of so-called ‘Australia’. We also seek definitions of diaspora that are not solely conceptualised through a lens of loss and nostalgia for ‘home’, but are considered through the lens of dynamic creativity, heterogeneity, fluidity and re-invention.
As a settler colony, ‘Australia’ occupies the unceded Lands of First Nations People, who, as the original Custodians, have cared for, thrived and created on this deeply storied continent for millennia. We thus recognise that this diaspora exists on stolen lands and benefits from systems that actively oppress Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and we hope to engage with art and writing that meditates on bonds of solidarity with First Nations Peoples.
This issue aims to highlight works that consider the interplay between cultural and lesbian/queer identities and how this informs notions of belonging. How are bodies treated differently in different geographies? What are the physical limitations that are imposed on racialised queer bodies? What are the emotional landscapes that accompany the restrictions and/or freedoms of movement? How do histories of lesbian/queer migration, exile, displacement shape dis/connection to land, self, community and place? How are queer communities created and navigated within diaspora/s? How are ideas of ‘kinship’ asserted, expanded and/or complicated across geography and time?
Body of Land also seeks work that explores queer erotic worlds, how our desires are influenced and satiated. How do we, as lesbians and queer people, relate to each other and to our bodies? What are the societal and culturally imposed shames that we have overcome? What shapes do our lusts trace? How do we negotiate lesbian/queer desire across cultures and geographies? What does it mean to belong to a body?
Through these provocations, we seek a deepening of understanding of lesbian/queer diaspora and First Nations perspectives. In doing so, we seek to draw attention to the importance of cultural specificity and multiplicity in shaping lesbian/queer experiences.
This project hopes to establish Sinister Wisdom as a publication here in so-called ‘Australia’ and equally, to showcase lesbian, queer and feminist storytellers of the Pacific region to Sinister Wisdom’s current readership. In this way, this issue aspires to be the beginning of a much broader project of transnational queer solidarity and community-building.
We seek submissions of prose (fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, hybrid), poetry, comics and art. We welcome written pieces in any language as well as multilingual works. Previous publication experience is not required. Submissions are accepted through Sinister Wisdom’s Submittable. Writers may submit a maximum of five poems, two short stories or essays, or one longer piece of up to 5,000 words. Artists may submit a maximum of 3 pages of visual art or comics. Deadline for submissions: February 28th, 2025.
If this project sparks your interest and/or if you have any questions, please get in touch! We look forward to reading your work. Our contact details can be found below.
Darla Tejada
0467542883
Darla Tejada is an emerging writer and student living, working and playing on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Archer, Kill Your Darlings (KYD), Sinister Wisdom, the National Gallery of Australia and Artlink. As a Filipino dyke, she is interested in art and writing that engages in/with Institutional Critique, particularly as it pertains to how systems and structures shape our experiences and imaginings.
Pelaya Arapakis
0421330411
Pelaya Arapakis is a lesbian musician, arts worker and emerging writer living and creating on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. She is a third-generation Greek migrant whose writing explores queerness, memory and culture.
The SWANA Dykes issue of Sinister Wisdom will highlight poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, oral histories, visual art, and genre-bending work from Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) dyke, lesbian, queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming artists. Submissions from Black transgender and gender non-conforming artists will be prioritized.
The SWANA region is often referred to as “The Middle East.” This terminology is Eurocentric and homogenizes a vast region that consists of people of diverse histories, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and languages. SWANA serves as a regional signifer rather than a political or racial one. Artists from the SWANA region as well as various SWANA diasporas are welcome to submit.
We want work that showcases SWANA dykes in their most authentic element, work that calls upon SWANA dykes who are ready and willing to tell their stories, SWANA dykes who are looking for a home for their stories.
We’re seeking work that deconstructs social categorization - racial, gender, nationalist, religious, and sexual categorizations placed upon those deemed other by imperialism, colonialism, and militarization. Art that interrogates the experiences of violence against diasporic people and that decries violence perpetuated within the SWANA region - such as the U.S. Muslim Ban enacted in 2017, the Kafala System - an abusive system against migrant domestic workers, and the 75+ years of the occupation of Palestine.
This issue of Sinister Wisdom aims to create conversations surrounding the diverse experiences of SWANA dykes and recognize their stories in different mediums. We’re seeking work that explores the myriad of ways dykes relate to each other - art that celebrates sex, sensuality, and romantic love. Art that is lustful and intimate, that is bitter and sardonic, that is craving and crying at the same time. Art that thrashes against hetero- and cis-normative confines, that seeps with rage against militarization and memorializes those lost to warfare and violence. Art that is full of love for those who fight against repression and cultivate futures for their loved ones.
Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, oral histories, visual art, and genre-bending work will be accepted through September 20th, 2024 to March 30th, 2025. Written pieces can be in any language; pieces written entirely in a non-English language should include an English translation. Artists are welcome to add a pseudonym under which they would like to be published if there are privacy concerns. Previous publication experience is not required. Submissions are accepted through submittable (sinisterwisdom.submittable.com) and should be submitted as one document of up to 10 pages, along with a brief bio and any applicable social media.
We look forward to reading your piercing, insightful, critical, hilarious work.
Sinister Wisdom uses three pieces of full-color visual art each year for the cover of the journal. We invite visual artists to submit .jpg or .tif files of their work for consideration through Submittable.
In addition, Sinister Wisdom selects 12-14 works of full-color visual art for our annual calendar. Submit .jpg or .tif files here as well for consideration.
If your work is selected, you will have to provide us high-quality .tiff files to print the cover.
We print black and white images in the pages of the journal and invite artists to submit black and white images as .jpg or .gif files for consideration. Again, if work is selected, you will have to provide us with high-quality.tiff files to print inside the pages of the journal.
Lesbian Writing (General):
Material may be in any style or form, or combination of forms.
Maximum: five poems, two short stories or essays, OR one longer piece of up to 5,000 words.
Please proofread your work carefully; do not send us changes after the deadline.
Please send a short contributor biography between 25 and 125 words with your submission.
Sinister Wisdom acquires first North American serial rights for all work that we publish. By acquiring first North American serial rights, authors guarantee that publication in Sinister Wisdom will be the first publication in North America. That is, the work has not appeared previously in another journal, in a book, online, or in other forms of publication. In rare instances, Sinister Wisdom will reprint work that has been previously published. Authors should discuss with the editor and publisher PRIOR to submission.
Many questions about rights are answered here: https://www.pw.org/content/copyright
Upon publication, all rights revert to the author.