Note: We are currently closed to submissions as we deal with a backlog. We hope to revert back to our old guidelines soon.
If you have submitted a work prior to June 25, 2005, and haven't heard back from us, please let us know.
John Newmark, Literary Editor ("Gavroche")
Submission Guidelines (the short version):
Tribal Soul Kitchen is updated irregularly. Subject matter/genre is wide open, with few exceptions. The editors welcome a broad cross section of styles, viewpoints, and philosophies. However, we don’t publish anything we feel places us in legal jeopardy, such as porn...
We are looking for poetry, fiction, articles, reviews, and art/photography. We claim One Time Online Rights. Your work will be published in the appropriate section of the zine for approximately 2 to 3 months, then archived. (We will delete your work from the archive at any time if you request.)
Reprints accepted. (Please be certain you retain all rights though, and inform us where your submission was published, so we can give credit.) We prefer not to receive simultaneous submissions. We will do our best to reply within 2 weeks. Enquire if you haven’t heard back in 6 weeks.
Email submissions No subs by postal mail accepted.
IMPORTANT: Please proofread your sub. If it arrives chock full o’ typos, it’s an auto-reject. Include your name (or pseudonym) and email addy in the body of your submission email. If you submit by attachment, include the info there also.
Additional details (the long version).
Please read carefully before submitting:
What is Tribal Soul Kitchen?
Tribal Soul Kitchen began its life as an outgrowth of the Ancient Gallery on the Official Doors website. Fans gathered together, to chat, and share their own poetry, music and art.
Years later the focus has shifted somewhat. Community is still an important part of the Soul Kitchen. Jim Morrison’s music and poetry is still held dear by all four members of the editorial staff. Articles are still written about our memories of his music, and the current activities of surviving band members. We also publish articles on those musicians of today who are igniting our souls. But most of what we are publishing is original poetry, fiction and art. But isn’t that the best way to honor an artist? Not by obsessively praising him. Not by imitating him. But by going out and creating our own art. In our own style.
To submit your poetry, fiction or art you will not have to pass any musical litmus test. Even if, God Forbid, you have never heard of The Doors...we will give your submission the exact same consideration we give all others.
How often is the Soul Kitchen updated?
No set schedule. That is, it will not be updated daily, weekly, or monthly. It will be completely dependent upon submissions.
How do I submit to the Soul Kitchen?
Send all submissions by email.
We accept emailed submissions only. Copy and paste the text of the submission into the email body. Or attach a document in one of the following formats: Microsoft Word, AppleWorks, or Text-only.
Are there any special formatting requirements?
We try to make this as easy for you as possible.
Poetry
Poetry often depends so much upon formatting that it may be easiest to attach the poetry as a word document. If certain lines need to be indented or spaced differently, this will be a necessity.
However, if the poem is left-justified you may be able to get away with copying and pasting it into the body of the email. You might want to place an "/" at the end of each line.
e.g.:
Whose woods these are I think I know /
His house is in the village though /
He will not see me stopping here /
To watch his woods fill up with snow. /
(The above lines are obviously from Robert Frost's poem: Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening)
This makes it clear to us where each line is supposed to end. It doesn't happen too much anymore, but sometimes emails have been known to chop up the lines of a poem. If this happens the "/"s will help us reconstruct the poem.
If you attach a document it will retain its original formatting, so you don’t have to do this.
Fiction/Articles
Use single spacing, and double space inbetween paragraphs. If you use italics and bold typefaces, it's best if you attach the file as a word document, so this formatting won't be lost.
We do not accept anonymous submissions.
Include a name or a pseudonym. (You don't have to tell us it's a pseudonym.)
Please include a short bio.
Each submission is judged on its own merits so we don't need to know if you have any previous publication credits. However, we like to let our readers know a little about each of our contributors, and you are certainly welcome to include credits, contact info, and personal website links. Take a look at our list of contributors, and you can see how others have written their bios and get ideas from them.
We also rarely accept untitled submissions.
While we prefer titles, we have made some exceptions for poetry.
We claim "One-Time Online" and "Archive" rights. Your work will be published in the appropriate section of the zine for approximately 2 to 3 months, then archived. (We will delete your work from the archive at any time if you request. And we reserve the right to remove any work for any reason, though the most likely one will be to make space for newer material if at some point in the future space becomes an issue. )
The author retains all other rights.