Dark Onus Lit
Website
From the Editor
Dark Onus Lit is a Philadelphia-based, volunteer-run, experimental micro-zine which publishes digital Issues of dark-themed artwork, writing, and audio. Established in 2022 by the poet and artist Erric Emerson (the Editor in Chief of the magazine, and its publishing imprint, Dark Onus Press) the “Dark Onus” umbrella conveys seriousness towards uncomfortable, challenging, and necessary creative work and the publication of such work. Dark Onus Lit is made up of emerging and established artists, designers, musicians, poets, and authors from major US cities/populated spaces, along with England. An editorial team which offers varied and informed outlooks, perspectives, and critiques towards submitted work in various genres and forms. As an experienced collective of creators, collaborators, and editors, we seek to find creative work that isn’t afraid to settle itself in darkness or remark upon something dark. Dark Onus Lit and Dark Onus Press were created as a response to a lack of creative outlets to showcase the type of works we publish. Each Issue, as a micro-zine, is chapbook-length (give or take 30 pages long). We typically feature a variety of poets, artists/photographers, and a flash/short story piece. However, each Issue varies with some Issues featuring more artwork, more stories, etc. DOL also has two unique pages which highlight creative work or discuss creative work with a contributor. Our “Features” section includes links to contributors work, which we publish from time to time. The published work here may or may not be included in an Issue release. This would be an area for creative work that we adore but doesn’t fit into a current Issue, is formatted in an incompatible way with our specific FlippingBook formatting we do for Issue releases or is too lengthy for an Issue release. These are typically up for a few months. Our “Hold Forths” section includes an Issue-based interview with one of the contributors from a forthcoming Issue. Both those featured works and those Hold Forth interviews are archived and viewable under another section called “The Annals”. This last referenced section serves as a digital archive for the magazine. Some of the types of works were looking to publish with frequency would be more experimental and strange work. We consider poetry, short stories, hybrid works, flash fiction, and audio/video. We enjoy things like- visual poetry, multi-genre work, spoken word audio, music video/poetry spoken word video, gifs, performative art, instrumentals, short films, etc. Our Issue releases are produced as digital FlippingBooks, the appearance of a frayed square flipbook for each Issue. These are also archived.
Submissions
Poetry: 5 poems. Metered poetry and lengthier poems, odes, etc are of less interest to us. There’s no poem max length but justify your 5 page poems. We like visual poetry, a lot. We appreciate strange displays. Recordings: 5 recordings. We are interested in audio or video. Be it a Spoken Word recitation, an Acapella rendition of lyrics, in any genre, or an instrumental track, sound effects, we want to see what weird things folks come up with. Genre Fiction: 5 pages. We are keen on works of Horror, Science Fiction, Speculative fiction, Meta Fiction, or a conflagration of these. These aren’t the only thing we accept, we just like them more. For Short Stories, 5 pages. For Flash Fiction, 2 pages. Artwork/Photography: 10 images. As we play with darkness as a theme for the zine, there’s any number of ways that can be explored. We’re intrigued by arresting, striking imagery and fancy work of the Surrealist, DADA, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Street art, and Postmodern Art, movements. But send us anything really, we like experiments. Send us series, too. Hybrid: 5 pieces. We are highly interested in experimental work. Which includes visuals, writings, and recordings. The hybrid category should not be used to send 7 poems or a 10 page short story.
Events and Contests
Dark Onus Lit and Dark Onus Press will have a table at The New York City Poetry Festival on July 29th. The Editor in Chief Erric Emerson, and Editors Mable Lee and Doug Cala will be reading at The Beckett Stage for Dark Onus, from 12-12:30p. https://www.newyorkcitypoetryfestival.com/readings Dark Onus Press, the literary imprint of Dark Onus Lit, will be at Festival Day on October 1st for the Brooklyn Book Festival. https://brooklynbookfestival.org/
Information
Editors Name Erric Emerson
Print publication? No
Circulation Publishing regularly on a yearly basis
Do you take online submissions? Yes
Submission Guidelines URL https://www.darkonuslit.com/submit
Approx. Response Time?
How often do you publish? 5-6 Issues a year, perhaps more
Year Founded? 2022
Do you pay? No
Twitter https://twitter.com/darkonuslit
Mailing Address:
502 W. 7th Street STE 100 Erie, PA 16502
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