Peak Magazine seeking articles on Immigration, Migrant Labour and Indigenous Sovereignty

The Peak is stoked to announce our Summer Issue, “Borders.” We’re excited to produce a magazine to examines borders and their implications for several reasons. Summer in Southern Ontario sees an influx of migrating workers to our agricultural regions and in the organizing of those that support them. The concepts of citizenship, status, and nation-states are central to Western capitalism’s exploitation of global populations and land bases. The existence of “Canada” on occupied territories makes exploitation and the threat of deportation daily realities for an entire class of undocumented people.

The Peak’s goal is produce a magazine that both documents the struggles of migrating populations and their allies and serves an informative tool for people involved in community-based work and anti-authoritarian resistance. We are soliciting articles about topics including but not limited to:

Migrant Labour:

• First person accounts of working as a migrant worker in Ontario, or interviews
• What does migrant labour organizing look like in Southern Ontario?
• Analysis of Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ and the Temporary Forerign Workers Programs SAWP and TFWP and how our agricultural/food systems are dependent on the exploitation of migrant labour

Immigration:

• How western capitalism exploits and dominates the global south along race, class and gender lines and how this impacts migration
• The ”safe country” designation of countries like Mexico and the violence that drives people north
• How the changes made to immigration system under Harper government  advances a capitalist agenda: refugee claims, immigration process, processes of holding and deporting people have all changed drastically in the last several  years. What are these changes, why were they made, how are they enforced and what are their impacts?
• Toronto was made a “sanctuary city” in February. What does this look like in practice? What are the barriers for undocumented people accessing services in Southern Ontario? How do these impact women, queers, and families?
• Racism: what is white supremacy, what are its origins in Canada, and how is it functioning today?

Indigenous Sovereignty:

• Indigenous peoples resisting the borders that divide their traditional territories
• Indigenous analysis of why “canada” is an illegal state

borders:

• History and analysis of the boundaries of “canada.” who historically has defined these, and in what interests? how do these boundaries interact with indigenous sovereignty?
• How capitalism and government propagandize against immigrants and refugees (like the CBSA-endorsed reality show “Borders”)
• Repression: how does the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) operate? what kinds of operations do they conduct, and who is impacted and how? how does Canada use military and police against migrant populations?
• The Security and Prosperity Plan (SPP) and how information shared between the US and Canada affected how borders are policed

Submission Details

NEWS FROM THE FRONT LINES

We want your current event stories, from coverage of current grassroots resistance movements to report backs from demos and other events. Short news briefs are welcome.

THEORY AND ANALYSIS

Theory is a broad category that encompasses discourse, philosophy and rants. From ramblings of french anarchist theory to critiques of community accountability processes, to opinion pieces and analysis of current and past struggles. Send us your thoughts, ideas or just stuff you’ve been mulling over.

REVIEWS

Read a zine you absolutely hated or a book that blew your mind? Have a sex toy that you just cant put down? Write us a review! Reviews can be short and sweet or or in-depth. If you need ideas, we may be able to hook you up with free copies for reviews.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The deadline for submissions for the summer issue is May 27, 2013.

Submissions should be sent to peakcontent@gmail.com in .odt or .rtf formats, please.

Do you have an idea for an article, but need help making it happen?

We’re happy to give you a hand. Give us a shout at peakcontent@gmail.com

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

There are many opportunities to participate in The Peak. We welcome original illustrations and photography, and we always need proofreaders and copy editors as well as help with event coordination and distribution of the magazine Email volunteer.peak@gmail.com

Fifth Estate now accepting submissions for “Education” themed Issue

The deadline is August 1st. Send your best!

http://www.fifthestate.org/fepages/call.html

online job postings for women writers

Femministas, perhaps the best ever online database of market listings for women and other feminist-identified writers, has re launched after a period of inactivity due to financial troubles. This site is a really amazing service for freelancers, and I’ve had many successful publications from listings they posted.

Visit their webpage for info on submission calls, scholarships, contests and awards!

Feminist Spec-Fic, Poetry and Post-Colonial Discourse: Writing Opportunities for the New Year!

When you live in the northern hemisphere, winter is probably the best time for writing. Something about the snowy quiet and the long nights just seems to wake up the creative mind. So take advantage, and submit to these markets!

Side B Magazine is looking for art, photography, poetry, prose and nonfiction for their Spring issue on Orientalism and Post-Colonial Discourse. Details here.

Pink Narcissus Press is looking for speculative short stories that explore gender roles in society for the upcoming anthology ‘Daughters of Icarus’. The guidelines state that the author’s gender is irrelevant, but “authors of any gender would do  well to acquaint themselves with the likes of Ursula K. LeGuin, Margaret Atwood,  Octavia Butler, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman…” Check out the rest of the details here.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone literary quarterly is open to submissions of essays, reviews,  manifestos, poetry, interviews, cartoons, flash fiction and creative non-fiction that “engages, stimulates, and entertains  the thinking reader.” They are most interested in work with feminist sensibilities, althought it does not have to be explicitly feminist. More details here.

Seven Circle Press is running a contest for poetry of all styles. Deadline is Dec 31st 2011, so hurry! The prize is 100$ plus publication, and there’s no entry fee. Details here.

 

upcoming opportunities for writers…

1: Briarpatch Magazine is hiring a new Editor/Publisher with “a grasp of anti-capitalist/anti-oppression/ecological politics and principles”.  For details, check out the job posting here. Deadline is January 4th, 2012.

2: Tightrope Books is looking for love letters from the lives of Canadian Poets! Check out the details here.  Deadline is spring 2012.

3: The Merril Collection is running a speculative short story contest, which you can check out here. Deadline is Feb 15th, 2012.

4: Circlet Press is looking for speculative erotic fiction for a new anthology centered around ”espionage/spy themes”. All sexualities and gender expressions welcome! Details are here. Deadline is December 15th, 2011.

5: ‘Bibliotheca Fantastica’ anthology seeks stories that have to do with ”lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic.” Deadline is December 15th, 2011. More info here.

6: Up The Staircase Literary and Arts Review is seeking poetry, fiction and photography for future issues. Check them out here.

Two Seriously Awesome Writing Contests!

Between now and December 1st Writing From the Margins: Briarpatch Magazine’s Creative Writing Contest is accepting short fiction and creative non-fiction (memoirs, personal essays and literary journalism) that “brings to life issues of political, social and environmental justice”. Check out the rest of their guidelines here.

The Capilano Review is also seeking submissions for their (e)contest, including “poems or flash fiction texts that take up relationships between environment(s) / language / ecologies / writing / activism for our special issue on ecologies.” Check out the rest of their guidelines here (the deadline for this one is Oct 31st, so hurry!).

Fuck Yeah Feminist Speculative Poetry!

The table of contents for The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry is now online, and I couldn’t be happier to see my name in it.

If someone had told me a couple of years ago that I was going to be in the same anthology as Ursula K. Le Guin, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. I read The Day Before The Revolution when I was on house arrest and it made me cry a whole bunch, although I admit the storyline seemed pretty romanticized and idealistic given my circumstances at the time.

One of the most exciting things about The Moment of Change is that it encompasses perspectives from the whole spectrum of women’s experience, which, in my opinion, is what true feminism should be all about. So, serious kudos to editor Rose Lemberg for honouring the diversity of voices that contemporary speculative writing has to offer.

Stone Telling, the magazine that Rose Lemberg edits (along with Shweta Narayan, who also rocks), also has an upcoming submissions period for their queer-themed issue from December 25th to February 20th. I’m definitely planning to submit stuff, and you should too!