Publishing a literary journal is hard lonely work. The biggest challenge really is distribution and putting the work into the hands of readers. We’ve had significant problems with distributors going out of business and I’ve tried, largely in vain, to create a network of artists and collections of artists through which we can distribute the journal, even if it is for free. As with my initial community experience, more people are performer bees than worker bees. The journal has been defunct for a while and now, thanks to a student theatre collective at the University of Minnesota, where I am pursuing my Ph.D. in Theatre with a dissertation to come on spoken word performance, Karawane is reborn once more, a third birthing, this time as a journal of performance texts. As such, we accept performed literature, oratory, performance art scripts, play scripts, etc. Anything you envision as a performance piece. We still have a preference for experimental work. And we now have an editorial collective of artists and graduate students who read and comment on submissions, taking it away from merely my singular vision at last.
We welcome manuscripts year round. The next deadline is Labor Day for the upcoming issue. We also welcome groups who wish to advertise with us for anywhere from $50-200, groups who want to receive bundles of the magazine, which you are welcomed to sell to raise money or to distribute to your members, as you see fit. And we love people willing to take an issue to library and procure a subscription for us.
Past issues & featured artists are posted at the Karawane Web site. For information or to submit, contact Laura Winton (aka Fluffy Singler) at fluffysingler@earthlink.net or wint0240@umn.edu. Here are the full guidelines:
Karawane: Or, the Temporary Death of the Bruitist, a journal of performance texts published by Crisis Point Theatre at the University of Minnesota, is seeking submissions for the next issue, to be published Fall 2006. Performance texts may include (but are not limited to):
In addition, the theme for this issue is “What is (not) a performance text?” We are actively soliciting submissions, reflections, manifestos, etc. on how you define what is or is not a performance text, how you turn text into performance, etc.
Submissions of up to 10 pages may be sent to wint0240@umn.edu or to fluffysingler@earthlink.net with “Karawane Submission” in the heading.
And now a treat: Laura has graciously consented to present two of her poems here at About Poetry:
- “41 for Diallo” (text and sound file)
- “Child Hands in Practice”
