“Remember the wisdom of the midwife: ‘Breathe,’ she says. Then: ‘Push.’ Now it is time to breathe. But soon it will be time to push: soon it will be time to fight for those we love.” – Valarie Kaur, Sikh poet.

Nurturing in a Time of Chaos

We are excited to announce that submissions for the 5th edition of the Women Raise Our Voices e-zine are now open. This issue’s theme is “Nurturing in a Time of Chaos.”

In these chaotic times with the sorrows of the world all around us, how are you going to tend and care for yourself, those in your community, and for Mother Earth?  It is increasingly apparent to a wider scope of humanity that we are of Earth, not separate, and that the litany of destruction in our environment registers deeply in our psyche. Remembering our connection with Earth may help guide a practice of nurturing in which we come home to ourselves, invigorate our connection to community, and to act on behalf of our mother Gaia.

• What does self-care look like amidst the chaos in our world?
• What does a practice of nurturing all life look like going forward?
• How do we actively listen to what Earth Mother is asking us to do?
• In the re-visioning of our world in a more sustainable paradigm, what tools and guidance do you see as needed in the rebirth?
• How does a deepening of attunement to Mother Earth affect you personally?

We invite you to share your voice with others through prose, poetry, or art.

Call for Submissions: Open now through March 8, 2025, 11:59 PM MDT

WRITERS’ GUIDELINES

Before submitting, please visit the Women Raise Our Voices online journal link on the website Writers Adventure to get a sense of our publication, and review the guidelines, below.

Required: Word (.doc or .docx) documents  in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 1″ margins, and titles in bold.

• Limit of 3 entries per person per issue submitted via this form (no email).
• No fee. No payment or prize–just good literary and artistic karma!
• Copyright reverts to you after WROV publication.
• Please submit edited, polished work. We reserve the right to be selective and to make small adjustments.

Submission Categories*

Prose: A single article or story, 500 words or less, double-spaced, .doc or .docx only.  We are looking for women’s stories, told creatively (i.e., no op-eds).

Poetry: A single poem no more than 40 lines, exactly as you intend it to appear by overriding Word’s automated format of line capitalization, etc.; .doc or .docx only.

Art: Any medium shown in .jpg or .png, only. Please include type of media and size of any physical artwork (i.e., 12″ x 15″ watercolor)

*Use separate submission forms if submitting more than once.

• Submissions are read blind. Do not include your name and address anywhere in the attached document or art file.
• Submissions from women, non-binary and woman-identified folks, only—and that also means no AI-generated content.
•  We accept simultaneous submissions, but ask that you withdraw your work via WROV Email LINK if it is accepted elsewhere before WROV is released to avoid copyright infringement.
• We do not print previously published material except by invitation of the editor.
• Response time varies, but may take three months. We will contact you the week prior to publication if your work is accepted. Please do not contact us, as the WROV email account is not closely monitored outside of open submission periods.

Entries that do not follow the guidelines will likely not be considered. Thank you for your interest!

REMINDERS:

• We want to know your name, email, and bio ONLY within the submission form itself.
• Do NOT include your name or other identifiers in the document itself, the file name, document title, header/footer, or content. To ensure anonymity, only submissions that follow these guidelines will be considered.
• Use Word .doc and .docx files for poetry/prose and .jpg/.png for artwork, only. (We cannot accept PDF, Google docs, “Pages,” email, etc.). Times New Roman, font size 12.
• ·We strive to create a publication free of distracting errors. To that end, we reserve the right to edit accepted submissions for correctness.
• This is an all-volunteer, non-profit effort. Thank you for understanding!

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