Call for Submissions: Chrysanthemum – Volume II

In 2016, we started with the seed of an idea: an anthology of Taiwanese diasporic artists and writers speaking our truth in turbulent times. We had hopes of opening eyes and hearts with bright, young voices that cut deep and sharp. We hungered to honor our heritage while forging bravely forward with new art and literature.

And you came with us.

Chrysanthemum: Voices of the Taiwanese Diaspora was a collection of over 20 artists and writers of the Taiwanese heritage speaking to their liminality, and was a dream made into a reality. Readers of TaiwaneseAmerican.org helped fund the payment of creators, the printing and shipping, and all the things that created this book. You told us you were with us.

And so we’re honoring that by starting again.

Below is our call for submissions for Chrysanthemum, Volume II. We are forever grateful for your contributions to Volume I, and hope you’ll stay for our second journey in Volume II.

Call for Submissions | Chrysanthemum: Volume II

Our vision

Volume I of Chrysanthemum launched in January 2018 thanks to generous contributions from readers – readers who also expressed interest in seeing Chrysanthemum bloom into a collection of related volumes.

At this time we are curating our second print collection of visual and written work by young people of Taiwanese descent that shares fresh, new takes on the Taiwanese diasporic experience. Like volume I, this project continues to be driven by our desire to have a gathering place for ideas and insights our socially-conscious peers are generating, and to connect with young people of Taiwanese heritage who find common threads in our experiences. Chrysanthemum is our way of showcasing emerging writers and artists and, in doing so, we hope to encourage our audience to ask questions and explore new perspectives and topics in this globalizing world.  

Call for submissions (writers and visual artists)

This collection’s theme is geography. We want contributors to explore the idea of place, space, land, home, and the ever-changing relationships between them. What is the ecology of an upbringing and life–socially, climatically, politically, geologically? How have colonization, globalization, and localization shaped our experiences in different places, both real and imagined?

Chief among keywords to consider are: place, space, scale, borders, boundaries, land, connections/ties, environment, home, foreign, ground, roots, climate, culture, trade, homeland, diaspora, and map

For this anthology, we encourage you to be creative, offbeat, and dynamic. We are looking for personal storytelling that is bold but nuanced and that exemplifies current critical thought about social and political issues and shifts in identities. For reference, please consider works in the vein of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen, Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu, Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang, Citizen by Claudia Rankine, They Can’t Kill Us Til They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib, and If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar, as well as works by Meera Sethi, Yang Mao Lin, Cinyee Chiu, Aster Hung, Xu Bing, Julia Kuo, Patricia Ngyuen, Alexis Peskine, Jia Sung, Mikayla Delson, Anand Vedawala, Jess X. Snow, Bigmouth Press, and daikon*.

We accept three categories of written content: fiction, non-fiction, and poetry/verse. Writers may submit up to three pieces, 3,000 words maximum each (no minimum), that have not been published elsewhere (with the exception of personal blogs or websites). Our editors will review each piece to help with clarity, direction, and general copyediting.

Visual artists may submit up to three, high-resolution images of work.  Works should generally be in of portrait (rather than landscape) orientation. An artist statement or description is optional, 300 words maximum. We will strive for color printing, but please note that your work may be printed in black in white, depending on funding constraints. Thus, if you provide a color image, please also include a black and white image as well.

We are particularly welcome submissions from people with indigenous Taiwanese backgrounds, mixed ancestry, queer/non-binary identities, third culture kids, as well as those with western but non-American upbringings (i.e. Taiwanese New Zealanders, Taiwanese Australians, Taiwanese who grew up in the UK, etc).

Compensation

We believe that it is important to pay writers and artists for their work, but as this is an independent project, our resources are limited. We are offering $50 per author and a copy of the book. At this time, we are only able to compensate one piece per author/artist.  

Please send full works to anthology.ta[at]gmail.com by Sunday, May 19th, 2019. Please include your full name, gender pronouns, age, and where you are based with your submission. If your work is accepted, further information will be emailed to you.

Sponsors

If you represent a sponsor interested in collaborating with Chrysanthemum, please reach out to us at the same email address above.

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