Decolonial Passage encourages emerging and established writers to submit to the magazine. We accept writing from writers of all backgrounds engaged in the decolonial project regardless of race, origin, gender, disability, or geographical location. Simultaneoulsy Decolonial Passage centers African, African-American, and Black Diaspora writing from the African continent, the Americas, Europe, and beyond. Read our Mission Statement to get a fuller understanding of Decolonial Passage and how the magazine interprets the concept of passage as both text and movement across geographical space. Read what we’ve published to get a sense of what the magazine is about.
WRITING GUIDELINES:
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please inform us that you are submitting with Decolonial Passage and with another publisher. Also, please inform us immediately if your work has been accepted elsewhere.
Please, no multiple submissions. Submit your writing in one genre per submission period.
We ask that you submit only once every six months.
Our goal is to have a response to your submission no later than 3 months time.
All work must be your own.
Because Decolonial Passage is a platform for human creative works, we do not accept submissions that contain AI processes. (Spellcheckers and grammar tools are not AI.)
We do not accept previously published work.
For essays and creative nonfiction, submit one piece only.
Call for Submissions: April 1-30, 2026. Issue #3 Ecology
During the month of April, Decolonial Passage will be open to all genres as we invite submissions on the theme of ecology. Send us your poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction in which we see human beings interacting with their natural environment, plants, and animals and in which you take into consideration the arguments of decolonial ecology.
In his book Decolonial Ecology, Martinican environmental engineer Malcom Ferdinand states that “decolonial ecology is an ecology of struggle. Far from the environmentalism of Noah’s ark, which refuses the world and prolongs the dominations of the enslaved, decolonial ecology is a matter of challenging the colonial ways of inhabiting the Earth and living together. Confronting ecosystem destruction is then intimately linked to a demand for equality and emancipation. From the perspective of the imaginary of the slave ship, decolonial ecology is a rising up from the modern world’s hold… it is a matter of recognizing that the colonial relationship cannot be reduced to a relationship between groups of human beings. It also includes specific relationships to non-humans, to landscapes, and to lands through the colonial inhabitations of the Earth. This means that emancipation from colonial domination cannot be thought of only as a change in the relationship of humans to humans. It also implies a transformation of the colonial relationship to landscapes and to non-humans, including in its slave-making forms.”
For more information, go the Books and Reviews section on our webpage and click on the review of Ferdinand’s book.
We look forward to your submissions!
Months for Open Submissions:
PROSE MONTHS – APRIL, MAY, AUGUST, DECEMBER:
Personal essays, memoir, and creative nonfiction in general, wordcount maximum 2500 words.
Short stories, maximum 3500 words each.
Flash fiction and nonfiction, maximum 800 words each.
POETRY MONTHS – FEBRUARY, JUNE, OCTOBER:
Poetry. We prefer poems that are completely flush left. Writers may submit up to three poems.
FORMAT FOR ALL GENRES – submit your work in MS Word or doc format. (No PDF’s.) Use size 12 font, double-spaced, Times New Roman with one-inch margins. Please include your name on your manuscript.
All submissions must include a cover letter and a short and current bio.
Decolonial Passage is unable to compensate writers at this time but has the intention of functioning as a cooperative and being able to offer a modest compensation in the near future.
Decolonial Passage will submit our authors to the following awards and prizes:
PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers
“Memory/I send myself” by Wangui wa Kamonji was selected for Best Small Fictions 2025.
TERMS & AGREEMENTS:
You (the writer) acknowledge that the work is your own and belongs to you. Decolonial Passage may solicit your approval to make revisions in the interest of style and uniformity. Decolonial Passage retains first publishing rights on works published in print or online, the non-exclusive right to reproduce, display, and/or distribute the Submission as part of Decolonial Passage in electronic format, as well as the right to republish your work in a digital or print anthology. Publishing rights revert to the author upon initial publication in the Decolonial Passage magazine. If the Submission contains material for which you do not hold copyright, any third party owned material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text or content of the Submission. If your work has been accepted for publication after being published in Decolonial Passage, we simply ask that you credit Decolonial Passage as the original publisher. Decolonial Passage may withdraw the offer for publication at any time.
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