Decapitate Magazine Submission

Decapitate is open for submissions through November 14! As you may know, Quaranzine was our beloved pandemic project

Submit To Decapitate Magazine 

Decapitate is OPEN for submissions through November 14. 

Decapitate is open for submissions through November 14! As you may know, Quaranzine was our beloved pandemic project. We’ve chosen a new name for Q-Zine this year to better reflect where we’re at culturally and who we are as an organization. But other than raising the pay rate, nothing else has changed. We’re still your online art and social justice magazine with a progressive, anti-capitalist bent.  

Here are the submission details:

Please send us art and writing with an underlying social justice theme, or any kind of activist work that you’d like an eclectic audience for. We’ll take submissions of stories, essays, Bandcamp links, visual art, artist talks, performances, instructional videos, comics, poems, and anything else that we can reasonably put into this format. We’ll publish new work every Sunday, and payment is $25. 

This is the publication contract we use. You can also find more detailed information about how we review submissions and what we’re looking for in our handy tip sheet below. 

Email thirdestateart@gmail.com to submit.

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Guidelines for Submitting to Third Estate Art’s Decapitate

We believe every submission is a gift, and we are humbled by the amount of talent we see in our inbox every day. Because we love transparency and we want you to succeed, we’ve put together this list of extra information and tips to help your submission stand out with our committee. 

1. Evaluation process: The submissions committee is made up of four people who work in different disciplines, and all four members review each submission as a group. Please know that if you submit outside of our open submission period, there is a 97% chance we didn’t see it. We are a small group with busy lives and many ongoing projects, so we are only able to review Decapitate subs when we’re open—currently now until November 14, 2023. 

2. What to send: Send us one story, OR up to three poems, OR up to five images. If you’re submitting in another medium, keep it reasonable. DO NOT send us your entire portfolio or your website to “pick from.” Because of limited volunteer time and resources, we will politely decline to do so. 

Please only submit once per submission period. 

3. Social justice themes: Third Estate Art is an arts collective that seeks to create and promote connections between art and social justice. Everything we publish in Decapitate must be related to a social justice theme in some way. Think climate change, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQIA+ rights, feminism (intersectional or GTFO), disability rights, our descent into fascism, abolishing ICE, and so on. The possibilities are—unfortunately—endless. 

Since you know your work better than anyone, you might feel like the connection to one of those themes is obvious. However, you can improve your chances of getting published by telling us in a quick sentence or two what that connection is anyway. Pretend like we’re your kindhearted grandmother who just wants to “get” you. 

4. When your work will be published: We make our editorial calendar as we go. This means that when you submit will determine your work’s place in line for publication. Submitting early in the submissions period means your work has a better chance of being published right away, while submitting close to the deadline means it might be many months. If your work is accepted for publication, we promise to communicate your publication date within a few weeks and to also let you know the day your work goes live on our site. 

5. Over- and underrepresented disciplines and subjects: We get ten times as many writing submissions as anything else, so it’s more difficult to get into Decapitate as a writer or poet. Please don’t let that keep you from submitting, though. We just want you to know—sometimes it’s not you, it’s us. 

On the other hand, some disciplines are under-represented in our submissions. Improve your odds by sending us video content, sculpture, comics, music, comedy, activism, and otherwise quirky submissions in general. Heck, send us a video of you in your living room giving an artist talk about what’s on your wall. We’re here for it. 

5.5 Always a no: It’s worth mentioning that we get an alarming number of writing submissions that fall into the category of what we call “trauma porn.” If the whole point of your story or poem is to describe—in horrific detail—a long list of sexual or childhood abuses, we’re gonna pass. Also, we always pass on evangelical writing, poetry with end rhymes, and art with symbols like blackface and swastikas (even well-intentioned and smartly done). We’re also iffy about stories that are heavy on sexual assault and animal abuse themes. We see TONS of them, and they are almost always miss the mark and make us feel really, really bad. 

6. Send clear emails: It’s totally cool if you’re not a professional, but we need to know who you are and what your work is about. Tell us your name. Say hi at the beginning so we know you’re not a bot and your attachment won’t give us a virus. Proofread your writing submission so our site editor knows she can vote yes without committing to an additional hour of unpaid copyediting labor. 

7. Be open to possibilities: The sad truth of this business is that we have to say no a lot more than we say yes. However, we have published work from folks who’ve submitted more than once, so don’t give up. You can always submit again during the next open submission period. There’s also a chance that if we love your work but can’t fit it into Decapitate, we’ll find some other way to work with you, especially if you are local to Chicago. 

8. Response times: We review submissions in the order they’re received and send out acceptances/rejections in batches. Depending on where we are in the submission cycle, you can usually expect to receive a notice in 3-60 days. If it’s been 60+ days, send us a note and maybe call our moms to make sure we’re okay. 

9. Ready to submit and don’t want to scroll back up? Our email is thirdestateart@gmail.com