Submissions will be open for poetry, haibun and fiction from October 1 to November 15, 2020. Please mail your submissions to narrowroad.mag@gmail.com with the genre specified in the title. Please submit separate mails for each genre, and paste your work in the body of the mail, not as an attachment.

Poetry and Fiction will be edited by the respective resident editors while the well-known Indian haijin Kala Ramesh will be our guest editor for Haibun. Here are her guidelines for submissions:

As guest editor for Narrow Road's December issue, what do I look for in haibun & tanka prose?

1. The narrative should be concise, ideally around 300 words. Longer is fine if you can hold the reader's interest. Situate your story in the now; past tense is fine if you can move into the present by the end. Don't clutter your prose with flowery language. Show the emotions that hold your story together but don't tell the reader what to feel.

2. Poems should both link to the prose and shift away from it. I prefer poems that are not a continuation of the prose and its images. Nobuyuki Yuasa says, "In good haibun, the prose deepens the understanding of the poetry, and the poetry gives greater energy to the prose. The relationship is like that between the moon and the earth: each makes the other more beautiful."

3. Don't have too many poems breaking your prose; the links and shifts may seem forced.

4. The entire piece should 'grow' on the reader, conveying more emotion than is apparent at first reading.

5. The title should add a third dimension, tying the whole piece together into something bigger than the sum of its parts.

6. Finally, step out of your comfort zone and try something new! Give me writing that will wake your readers from their slumber.

Go for it!

yours in haikai,
_kala :))