Edited by A. Shaikh

In her essay “Autogeographies,” Barrie Jean Borich describes place, in the craft of literary work, as “more than just a container of action.” She explains that “the human sense of, and attachment to, place is—as geographers tell us—profound and deeply embedded in our stories.” In other words, we are the places our bodies have crossed, called home, left, and dreamt about. For this issue of MQR Mixtape, I am seeking poems, essays, short fiction, and visual art that create a particular and vivid spatial resonance. I am searching for creative work that grapples with how land, landscape, architecture and other reverberations of our public and private surroundings, affect who we are. I want to encounter art in which place becomes a vehicle to explore the intersections of identity and belonging. Where did you come from? How did you arrive? I am equally as interested in place as a site of fraught tension, of narratives that confront and interrogate (im)migration, displacement, and the language of borders. Send me your strange geographies, your childhood neighborhoods, your many countries of memory. I want to know where you are.

Given the state of the world, in time of rage and mourning, and the specific connection of this themed issue with ongoing realities, as a guest editor I encourage submissions from marginalized writers, especially those Palestinian, Armenian, Afghan, Sudanese, Moroccan, and Libyan folks who are living through various forms of colonial, imperial, genocidal, and ecological catastrophe. Furthermore, in a moment where solidarity with Palestine has been met with censorship, doxxing, cancellation of awards and events, and firing from professional positions, I continue to welcome writing from anti-Zionist comrades as well as those who have been victims of aforementioned silencing. (The language of solidarity in this excerpt is borrowed from the journal MIZNA's latest submission call.)

Poetry: up to four poems

Prose*: up to 4,000 words

*short stories, flash fiction, non-fiction essays

Visual art/photography: up to five works

Hybrid work**: up to three pages

**multimedia work, photo essays, comics, collaborations (within and across disciplines), archival materials, love letters

Only previously unpublished work will be considered. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted by another publication. Please send only one submission per window; subsequent submissions will be rejected automatically.

The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2023.

The Jesmyn Ward Prize will be awarded annually by the Michigan Quarterly Review to one short story submitted for consideration. The Michigan Quarterly Review has established this prize in honor of Helen Zell Writers’ Program Alumna Jesmyn Ward and her significant contributions to the literary arts.

Please submit one unpublished short story of 1,500-7,000 words. Simultaneous submissions are welcome but please withdraw your submission as soon as it is accepted elsewhere.  

We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable, its title, or its file name.

First readers for the prize will be the Helen Zell Writers’ Program students who currently review submissions on behalf of the journal. 

Submissions will go through two rounds of consideration by graduate students before 10 finalists are passed on to the judge.

Current faculty and students and recent graduates (in the past 3 years) of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program will be barred from submitting. Close friends, relatives, and current and former students (in the past 3 years) of the Judge will be barred from submitting. MQR’s staff and editorial board, as well as their immediate family members, are also excluded from the contest.

The 2024 Judge will be David Lynn. The winning story will be published in the Summer 2024 issue of MQR.

The prize will be in the amount of $2,000 and publication. All submissions will be considered for publication in MQR.

Please submit up to 5 previously unpublished poems with a total page count of no more than 10 pages. Poets at all stages of their careers are encouraged to submit. Multiple submissions are permitted with multiple fees.  Simultaneous submissions are acceptable but please leave us a note to withdraw individual poems if they are accepted elsewhere. All submissions will be considered for publication. This year's final judge will be Lawrence Joseph. The prize is $1,000 and the winning submission will be published in the Summer 2024 issue of the journal.

Goldstein Prize Guidelines

1. We accept submissions via Submittable and use its tools to ensure that all identifying information is hidden from our contest readers throughout the selection process.
2. We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable, its title, or its file name.
3. Up to 20 submissions will be passed on, without identifying information within them, to the judge.
4. Close friends, relatives, students, and former students of the judge, are excluded from the contest. Likewise, the current Editorial Board and staff of MQR, as well as their immediate family members, are excluded from the contest. Graduates of the Helen Zell Writers Program in the last 3 years and current faculty and staff of that program are also excluded.  If any of the selected authors fall under these categories they will be disqualified, and a replacement will be chosen from among the finalists.
       We feel acquaintance and/or participation in a workshop (outside of semester-long academic settings) taught by the judge should not be a disqualifying factor, so long as none of the poems in a manuscript is recognizable to the judge.
       For the purposes of this contest, we'll call a “close friend” anyone with whom we have regular direct correspondence. And please remember that if a poem is recognizable to the judge, it will be disqualified.