calls for submission – Coffin Bell

Submissions opening April 1st, 2021 for “Technophobia”

Announcing the theme for Volume 4, Issue No. 4: “Technophobia.” Give us your hashtag noir, your algorithms gone awry, your disinformation dystopias, your marketing monstrosities. Got a the-universe-is-a neuron-and-we-are-merely-synapses fantasia? Send it. We want your elegiac missives to the maverick bot you Twittercided. We crave your HTML sonnets coded in paranoia. From AI gone rogue, to parallel social media universes, we want your technologies of fear. Submissions opening April 1^st, and closing July 4^th, 2021. Submit your darkest digital delights!

Submissions now open for Vol. 4, Issue No. 2 – “Labyrinths”

Submissions for issue 4.2 (“Labyrinths,” 4.1.2021) are now open! In the mythical story, King Minos of Crete commissioned Daedalus to create a structure to contain the Minotaur, to hide its existence from the world. Crete demanded “tributes” from other nations to feed the Minotaur. Theseus, one of the Princes of Athens, was one of these tributes. However, Ariadne fell in love with him and assisted him in navigating the labyrinth with her Golden Thread, enabling him to kill the Minotaur. The Labyrinth today is frequently used to evoke the Jungian concept of the “collective unconscious,” with the Minotaur at the center being symbolic of the shadow self. Theseus must cling to the thread in order to stave off the deadliest effect of the labyrinth: disorientation. Marie von Franz writes of the connection between the labyrinth and the subconscious: “The maze of strange passages, chambers, and unlocked exits in the cellar recalls the old Egyptian representation of the underworld, which is a well-known symbol of the unconscious with its abilities. It also shows how one is ‘open’ to other influences in one’s unconscious shadow side and how uncanny and alien elements can break in.” Here the Minotaur represents our repressed, dark, or perhaps evil aspect. For our “Labyrinths” issue, we are seeking work that interrogates the Shadow Self, that blurs the line between good and evil, work that confronts what really makes a monster.

Click here to submit!

Submissions now open for “Mythopoeia,” Issue 3.4

Submissions open May 28, 2020 for Volume 3, Issue No. 4, themed “Mythopoeia,” and close at 12AM EST on August 1, 2020.

Joseph Campbell noted that modern society has outgrown the classical myths, and that new myths must be created. However, Campbell also asserted that modern society is changing too rapidly to be completely described by one overarching mythology, and therefore today’s myths must be created at a later time. But, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “the sun shines today also … Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”

Myth explains, myth personifies, myth illuminates. Myth is humankind’s attempt to explain existence to itself.

But myth is also falsehood. Myth is fiction, a narrative created to characterize an event or phenomenon. Some might even rebut Campbell’s claim and posit that modern myth is not only extant, but very well and good in modern society.

While we are reading all types of mythic work for this issue, we are particularly interested in political myth and its role in the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Submissions now open for “Philia / Phobia”

Submissions open 8/11/2019 and remain open until 12/31/2019 for issue 3.2, themed “Philia / Phobia.” Make us love your fear or fear your love–either way, we want to read your dark work!

Whether it be one or the other, or a combination of both, we want to read about abnormal love, undue inclinations, and extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

We won’t be publishing any pedophilia work.

We are looking for creative interpretations of this theme, and look forward to reading your words! Open to flash fiction, short story, creative nonfiction, essay / short criticism, and poetry.