Lumpen: a Journal for Poor and Working Class Writing
CALL OUT FOR SUBMISSIONS:
DEADLINE: OCTOBER 31st 2019
Questions and Submissions: lumpeneditors@gmail.com
PLEASE READ: https://www.chavsolidarity.com/how-to-submit before you write anything.
The first issue isn’t even out yet, and already we’re planning the 2nd issue. This might well be hubris, but it’s more likely conviction that a space needs to be created for the writing of poor and working class folks.
Contemporary writing about class and everything else in the UK is dominated by those who were educated in a particular way, went to the right schools, made the right connections and could easily be considered middle class. This is a shit show. Even articles and books which defend working class and poor folks tend to be written by those with a bare minimum of experience of the lives of the economically marginalised. We need to create our spaces for our literature. Spaces uncontaminated by the smug condescending hands of the publishing industry, which will only ever allow a select number of voices through to represent the most diverse of economic stratas. We won’t be accepting pieces based on how we can market them and who we can market them towards. We’ll be accepting pieces because we think they’re relevant, and they’ll be read by people who give a shit about engaging with the ways in which the class system infects radical social movements.
Whether it's rant or thoughtful academic style essay there will be a space for it. Poor and working class voices come in many styles forms and all are legitimate. You don't have to be posh to have read Negri, Fanon, Deluze and Federici, but you do have to have wondered where the next meal is coming from to be able to say “fuck this shit” properly.
Oh, and yes we do pay. It’s a token amount at the moment, roughly £50 an essay or short story. And £25 for poems. The email to criticise that is the same as the one for submissions.
As with the first issue, we’re up for folks submitting whatever they want to write about, but we’re going to provide some questions as well, which you can answer directly or reform into a way that suits you, or just flat out ignore.
1) How do our current methods of organising alienate us from each other?
2) Can you explore the process and experience of alienation?
3) Does being working-class affect your relationship to the people around you? If so, how?
4) How are you alienated from social movements?
5) Self hatred, internalising class, how are we produced as individuals? How do we reproduce the class system?
6) The left is nothing more than middle-class posturing. Discuss.
So. now it’s over to you, write, write and write some more. Send ya stuff to us.
Here are 10 things you need to know:
1) We only accept writing from those who identify as working class or if not identifying as working class, have experienced long term involuntary poverty and economic hardship.
2) We may accept writing of all length, but generally we look for anything between 2,000 and 4,000 words.
3)We accept all styles of writing – fiction, non-fiction, poetry – there’s a little list of writing styles in the section on structure.
4) For each issue we will suggest several themes and questions. If you want to write about something that's fine, but drop us a line telling us what you want to write about as we might be planning a later issue that fits with it better thus giving you longer to write.
5) If you've never written before or are lacking in confidence in your writing, get in touch. We can either give support with your piece of writing, and devise different strategies with you to get your ideas out of your head onto the paper. For example one article for a future issue, will be a transcribed interview with a working class organiser.
6) Don't worry if you're not confident about spelling, grammar, sounding educated enough. The first two the editors can help out with, and the last one can go fuck itself. What we're interested in is hearing your ideas based on your lived experiences.
7) Concerned about style? Don't be, we're happy to publish openly angry rants written in stattco rhythm or fictional narratives about killer avocados on toast, written with references, and everything else in between. Whatever voice you feel comfortable using.
8) Please title your work, if you can’t think of one we can help you find one.
9) Name yourself as you’d like to see it printed, or state if you would like to remain anonymous.
DEADLINE: November 30th 2019
SEND TO: lumpeneditors@gmail.com