Submissions
Submissions are currently closed but please start writing now for our next submission window
Submissions open 7th - 31st July 2025
for Edition Two launching on 29th October 2025 (Sustainability Day). Please subscribe to Bending The Arc for all Call Out notifications.
All submitted work must have a strong thrutopian element. Thrutopian writing imagines ways through to a world we would be glad to leave to future generations. It tells stories about tangible change and walks us along the challenging path from now to a more hopeful, liveable tomorrow. It accepts unpredictability and upheaval as foundational to the times that we’re living into, but doesn't dwell in that fear.
The interpretation of thrutopian ideals in poetry and prose is wide. It could include practical elements of finding a path from where we are now to where we want to be, or pieces that build collective action, or pieces that express belief or yearning for a future that is achievable and liveable. For poetry, thrutopoetry takes us beyond the nature poem, the praise poem and the ecopoem.
Thrutopian poems and prose are works of intention and longing, which aim to change our belief in ourselves as people who can and will make a future for our species on Earth, in ways that respect and integrate with nonhuman life on this planet allowing us all to thrive and flourish.
In summary thrutopian writing
Writes the future into being
Has a tone of urgency or purpose
Foregrounds adaptation and innovation
Is not dystopian, utopian or in fantasies of other worlds
Focuses on our personal and collective agency to choose a flourishing future
Shows ways humans create resilient communities
Mends separation from the animate earth
Comes into a new sense of what it is to be human
Writes directly into the trouble, through the turbulence and takes us beyond
Sparks joy. While thrutopias can yearn for or mourn old certainties they focus on the path forward which is alive, and full of potential
We can write the future into being and tackle the dark and difficult challenges of the present day in a spirit of stubborn optimism. Your aim is to write thriving, desirable futures into being.
Submissions Guidelines
We welcome work of varying lengths, that said, please adhere to the following guidelines.
Poetry submissions up to a maximum of 2030 words, unless otherwise specified for themed call outs. Please send all poems within a single document with your name on each page and start a new page for each poem. Word counts are not targets: we welcome mighty but tiny poems as much a long poem. Submissions that exceed the word count will not be read. Work can be submitted in any format. For poetry with complex layouts submit a PDF file. Substack favours the left hand margin.
Short story and novel extract submissions can run to a maximum of 2030 words. Please only send one prose submission per edition. Word counts are not targets and submissions that exceed the word count will not be read. Please submit work as .docx or .rtf files.
All submissions must include a title.
Reviews please contact us with your suggestions.
Non-fiction please contact us with your suggestions.
How To Submit
Submit your work by email using the same file name format and email header: FictionFirstnameSurname or NonFictionFirstnameSurname or PoetryFirstnameSurname or ReviewBookTitle or HybridFirstnameSurname. Misnamed files will not be read.
Type your name in the footer of your document.
Include a 50 word, third-person bio in the email along with your submission.
Send your submission by email : bendingthearcmagazine@substack.com
Additional Information
All submitted work must have a strong thrutopian element. Previously published work that fits these criteria will be welcomed. If you are submitting work to us that has been previously published elsewhere, you must have permission for the work to be reproduced and add a credit to previous publications with your submission for the work to appear in Bending The Arc.
If your work is accepted elsewhere while under consideration with us, please let us know by email that you withdraw your submission.
We are interested in consecutive submissions from authors writing a series of poems or fiction, so if a piece is accepted from a series, or that later becomes a series, please send us the next instalment when you’re ready.
We want Bending The Arc to be broad and diverse in scope. We welcome submissions from all writers everywhere working in all thrutopian forms.
The author retains all rights. However, if your work goes on to be published elsewhere, please acknowledge that it appeared in Bending The Arc
We will not accept work generated by Artificial Intelligence unless that is part of a deliberate creative practice and acknowledged as such.
Unfortunately, we can’t offer individual feedback.
No changes to your work are possible after submission.
We aim to provide a response on all submissions within three months.
At Bending The Arc we're excited to see where your thrutopian writing will take us. Please send us your stories, poems, novel extracts, hybrid and non-fiction pieces. We can't wait to read your work!
Submissions by email
bendingthearcmagazine@substack.com
For queries related to submissions, please contact us, you will need to be a subscriber to email us (this is to reduce spam).
