Submissions: The Everyday Pandemic
Isolation, Exile, & the Everyday Pandemic:
And when we speak we are afraid/ our words will not be heard/ nor welcomed/ but when we are silent we are still afraid/ so it is better to speak/ remembering/ we were never meant to survive. — Audre Lorde, “A Litany for Survival”
About the Series:
Sampsonia Way is pleased to announce a new series exploring isolation, exile, & the everyday pandemic experiences. With the arrival of COVID-19 new realities emerged. Isolation became ubiquitous. Everyday movement suddenly came with great risk. The spaces that once brought order and safety became malleable and uncertain. With this in mind, we are now collecting stories, poems, nonfiction essays, and digital art that explore the pandemic’s toll on everyday life. We hope to create an alternative conversation to the dominant COVID-19 discourse: one that captures the daily toll of life through the pandemic from the perspective of writers and artists who are familiar with the experience of isolation and exile.
At Sampsonia Way, we believe that writers, artists, and scholars who have experience with exile, oppression, or suppression of speech have particularly keen insights on the past year. We understand that for many — those who have experienced exile or displacement or loss of home — these shifting realities are not exclusive to the pandemic. The sense of loss is familiar. The sense of uncertain boundaries is common. It evokes empathies, sometimes leading to the mistaken claim — that we are all in the same boat. On the contrary, COVID-19 pandemic has revealed deep-rooted inequalities that distance us from each other. It is upon these friction points we’re particularly eager to explore. We believe that these narratives can work towards an understanding of each other with our differences — not despite them.
Submission Requirements:
Topics may include but are not limited to the following:
• Feminists in exile, exiled feminists in pandemic times, and alternative forms of gendered solitudes
• Queering everyday in exile during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Care and kindness in the pandemic
• Time and/or Space throughout the pandemic
• Friendships and Relationships during the pandemic
• Communal Life and Alternative Solidarities during the pandemic
Our Reading Period runs through April 15 2022. Unfortunately we are not able to guarantee compensation for contributors at this time.
Submit work to info[at]sampsoniaway.org with the subject line “Everyday Pandemic.” In your email, include a short introductory note and a brief bio. We prefer essays and stories to be fewer than 4,000 words. Please submit no more than five poems at a time. Word Documents or Google Documents are preferred.
About the Editor:
The series is edited by Scholar-at-Risk, Simten Coşar. A visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh (2020-2021), she has published on politics in Turkey, intellectual history, feminist politics and feminist theory in Turkish and in English. She is the co-editor of Universities in the Neoliberal Era: Academic Cultures and Critical Perspectives (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), and Silent Violence: Neoliberalism, Islamist Politics and the AKP Years in Turkey (RQB, 2012). Coşar translated prominent works in social sciences from English to Turkish, and from Turkish to English. Her most recent scholarly translation is Handan Çağlayan’s seminal work on Kurdish women’s movement (Women in the Kurdish Movement: Mothers, Comrades, Goddess, Palgrave, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She has been involved in writing collective stories in an independent group, Dikiş Makinesi (Sewing Machine). Coşar is a member of Kadın Koalisyonu (Women’s Coalition), Bir-Ara-Da, and Feminist and Queer Researchers Network. She is a peace academic and is in love with the Mediterranean.
