We open for submissions in 2024. We will publish two issues annually in April and September. We will be open year-long for submissions. Please read our guidelines below and send submissions to harpysubmissions@gmail.com. We will not read submissions that don’t follow our guidelines. Please check our social media pages for updates:
Harpy Hybrid Review (HHR) exists to celebrate and showcase hybrid works in all their varied forms: poetry, songs, translations, multilingual/bilingual work, flash/micro fiction, creative nonfiction, videos, collaborations, erasures/found poetry, ekphrastic work and visual arts including comics and broadsides. We seek submissions from published and unpublished writers and artists. All contributions will be fully archived.
We publish original work AND also consider materials previously published (from print journals only; please let us know where so we can give proper acknowledgment).
We seek to publish a variety of new and established voices. We encourage submissions from underrepresented voices including, but not limited to, women, people of color, LGBTQ+, those living in poverty, survivors of trauma, and incarcerated writers and artists.
Authors whose work we admire include: Claudia Rankine, Natalie Diaz, Kazim Ali, Luci Tapahonso, Layli Long Soldier, Deborah Miranda, Solmaz Sharif, Katie Farris, Carolyn Forché, Anne Carson, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, Italo Calvino, and William Carlos Williams.
Note: We generally decline submissions with graphic violence, graphic sexual content, and/or with overtly religious themes.
Guidelines
In your submission, please include:
- a cover letter
- the title(s) of the piece(s)
- names of the author(s) and/or artist(s)
- a brief biography (or biographies) of the contributor(s)
- a single document, no more than 5 pages of writing, or no more than 10 pages of writing including visual art (.doc, .docx, or .pdf if it includes spatial and/or visual elements).
For videos, please paste the link if it has been uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. Note that our preference is for shorter videos, generally no longer than 2 minutes. Broadsides and other accompanying artwork or photography may be submitted as .pdf, .jpg, .gif, .tif, or .png. All work must be your own OR must be created in collaboration with permission from the other artist(s).
Note: Please be sure your written work is hybrid in some sense of the word; it could be helpful to indicate in your cover letter what genres are represented in your work and/or how your work challenges traditional genre distinctions. We accept submissions of all forms of visual art.
Please send your submission to harpysubmissions@gmail.com.
If you would like to submit a book review, please also send it to harpysubmissions@gmail.com. We seek reviews of books that explore hybrid/cross-genre work with a focus on how form influences meaning. Book reviews will be published to our blog.
Please allow 90 days to hear back about the status of a submission. If you don’t hear back after 90 days, feel free to reach out to us regarding your submission.
What Is Hybrid Work?
Historically, poetry and drama were connected. Lyrical poems were sung or accompanied by music in ancient Greece. In some languages, story and poem share a common word.
In contemporary America and its production of literary journals, genres are often separated, delineated, and categorized for publication according to markets that have little to do with the art itself. This easy ordering of art limits its potential as well as ours—the use of our many talents and possibilities of our creative work.
Hybrid pieces challenge contemporary genre limitations, utilizing any and all of the artist’s capabilities as well as encouraging collaboration. It confuses easy categorization. It pushes the limitations imposed by definitions, convenience, generalizations, and publishing standards. This is the work we need more of in our nuanced, not easily labeled world. Hybridity allows us, the artists, the freedom to express an idea as it presents itself—in many varied forms, without restriction. It allows us to embrace all art, shedding expectations and allowing our work to take shape in whatever form(s) it may.
Examples of hybridity in literature include, but are not limited to: prose poetry, lyric essays, ekphrastic poems, songs, broadsides, found poetry, digital literature, comics, and any other combination of the traditional elements of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art.