Submit

What to Write About: Any piece submitted to this journal must be about Muslims or an Islamic issue. This means that at least one character in your fiction piece must be a Muslim, your poetry must discuss a topic for or about Muslims, and your artwork must showcase Islam in some shape or form.

This does not mean you need to be Muslim. You will not have to prove your faith to anyone at this journal in order to be published. You may belong to another faith, or to no faith, as long as you write about the above ideas.

Having said that, this is not a religious site, so please don’t preach. We are all humans and we want to see human emotion, feelings, laughter and tears. Don’t tell us what Islam teaches. Show us how Muslims act, talk and feel. And that is a very broad spectrum, we admit freely.

Also, please know your audience. They may be any age, color, religion, or culture, but they probably love reading and appreciate good art. So make sure you don’t include high-level religious jargon or discuss a specific culture without explanations. Don’t assume that everyone will know what everything means, and please make judicious use of Arabic. Read your piece as if you were not Muslim and then judge for yourself. Better still, ask a few friends to read it before submitting. You’d be surprised by how much a second and third pair of eyes can pick up.

All written entries must be in English, preferably American English but we also accept British English. You may use the occasional word in another language if it is necessary for your piece.

Finally, we fully support freedom of speech and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but we also insist on respectful speech. If you make use of profanity or other types of negative or offensive speech, please think very carefully and make sure it fits the occasion, character and storyline. No sexually graphic storylines or pornographic artwork, please.

How to Submit: Submissions are on a rolling basis, and our turnaround time is usually 4 weeks unless otherwise noted on this website.

All submissions must submitted via email at submissions@blueminaret.com.

All submissions must be accompanied by a short bio in the body of your email. Your poetry and fiction submissions itself must be attachments in Microsoft Word. Please don’t submit PDF documents or links to Google docs. 

Please do not use this address to ask questions or air your grievances. You may contact us with all other concerns by clicking on the contact tab above.

Poetry: Submit up to 3 poems, no more than 10 pages, all in one single document. Each poem must be on a separate page, typed in Times New Roman or Garamond, double spaced & paginated. 

Art: Submit up to 3 pieces of artwork, using any medium including photography. Submit one image per email, in high resolution jpegs only. 

Fiction: Submit between up to 1,000 words for flash fiction or between 1,000 – 5,000 words for short fiction, typed in Times New Roman or Garamond, double spaced and paginated. 

Interviews: We welcome interviews of published authors, poets and artists who hail from a Muslim background. Please query us at editor@blueminaret.com if you would like to submit an interview in text, audio or video format. We do not accept unsolicited submissions in this category.

Reviews: We welcome reviews of published fiction books and poetry collections by Muslim writers and poets. Please query us at editor@blueminaret.com if you would like to submit a book review. We do not accept unsolicited submissions in this category.

Please note that we are a completely volunteer-driven journal and therefore cannot make any payments for work published. We do, however, promise to promote you and your work as much as humanly possible.

If you haven’t heard back from us after 2 weeks of submittal, please query us using the contact form.

Legalese: We reserve the right to edit written pieces, but you will have the opportunity to accept or reject the edits before publication. If you do not accept our edits, we cannot guarantee publication, although we do our best to work with our authors.

We sometimes accept previously published work, although it really depends on the quality of the piece. If you send us a submission that’s already been published elsewhere, please note this very clearly in your email, along with name and date of publication. Simultaneous submissions are okay, as long as you notify us immediately via email if your piece is accepted somewhere else.

If we decide to publish your piece, we will  acquire first serial rights, which revert back to you upon publication. We also retain the right to archive your work for an indefinite period of time. If your piece is later accepted for publication elsewhere, you agree to cite this website as first publication. If for some reason you wish to remove a published piece of yours from this website, please contact us as soon as possible.

Good luck, and happy writing!