Artists working in any medium and writers expressing themselves in any form or genre are invited to submit work for the sixth issue of ITCH Online. The "theme" is: 

 Smileyface 

 

Smiley face. :) Happy days. What makes you crack a grin and send some bright-eyed love out into the world? There is so much joy in life, and so much sadness. How do you experience each? How do you find and cling to happiness? When does life let you down and when does it lift you up, up and away? Where is your euphoria, how do you get there? Is lasting happiness possible or do those fleeting moments of laughter prove that it is only a myth? What experiences fit into the continuum between contentment and ecstasy? Does every cloud really have a silver lining? Is it possible to find joy in the midst of pain? When - and why - do you append a colon-close bracket to your electronic communications? :) How much can be said - or is left unsaid - with the emoticon? Is it shorthand for incommunicable feelings, or just plain lazy? What in this crazy old world can bring a smile to the face of others? How often have you wanted to smile but stopped yourself? How can you tell if someone's smile is genuine or fake? Is it true that the unintelligent are happier? What does the smiley face mean to you? :)

You are free to interpret this theme in any way that you wish, to speak to or against it, to explore or ignore it. 

Submissions for this issue will be accepted until 30 September 2010. Contact the editor if you have any suggestions or questions.

ITCH Online Submission Guidelines

Don't send work that has been published or submitted elsewhere. We rely on contributor's good faith in this respect, but should we discover that a published piece has appeared elsewhere, we reserve the right to remove it.

Text submissions:

  • No longer than 3500 words. (We know the web is unlimited, but most web-readers attention spans are not!)
  • Please submit in a formatted word document.
  • Any form of poetry, prose, fiction or non-fictional, experimental, creative or journalistic, public or private writing is welcome.
  • An accompanying illustration may be submitted. Must be in JPG format, no larger than 900px wide and no larger than 3MB in size.
  • Audio files are welcome (recordings of your sound art, poetry, prose, song lyrics or opinions). Files should be submitted in MP3 format and should be no larger than 50MB.
  • Book reviews welcome. Please keep them to about 750 words and include full details of the book you are reviewing (author, publication date, publisher, etc.). Accompanying images are welcome but not necessary.
  • Please ensure that your work is finalised and ready for publishing before submitting.

Visual submissions:

  • Anything from 1 – 10 images. If you are submitting more than one image, please ensure that they are part of some kind of series (i.e. no arbitrary collection of portfolio shots).
  • Must be in RGB colour, JPG file format, no larger than 900px wide and no larger than 3MB per image. Please ensure that each image has decent resolution (300dpi) for enlarged viewing.
  • Must be accompanied by a title (even if untitled), year of production, and a very short abstract/explanation. Please save each image filename as follows: "Surname_Title".
  • Multimedia files welcome (animations, short films, etc). Send the editor a weblink to the video for viewing. If it is accepted, delivery of the file should be in stand alone .FLV format and should be no larger than 50MB. Please send a jpg screengrab along with the video file, if accepted.
  • Submissions for the cover image are welcome. Please submit at least three images in a series (for rolling cover) at 940 x 400px in size, high resolution, no larger than 3MB per file. If you don't make it on to the cover the work will still be considered for a feature.

All submissions:

  • Must include name, e-mail and telephone number of contributor, and a short biography (no more than 200 words).
  • Feel free to include a link to your webpage.

Submit all work via e-mail to the ITCH editor.

What do I get for contributing?

An invitation to contribute to the "by invitation only" section of the next print magazine (once we raise funding to make this happen). This does not mean that the same piece of work that is published on the website will be included in the magazine, but that you will be invited to write/create something NEW for the magazine.

The inclusion of an e-mail contact or website published alongside the piece.

Sorry, but we can't pay. We hope that exposure to an appreciative community will help to advance your career, or simply give you an outlet for some ideas/thoughts/writings that might not really fit in anywhere else, or that you just simply wish to share.

Please note that submissions for the next print issue are NOT currently open. To subscribe to our mailing list in order to be informed of when the next print call for submissions will be open, click here.