Welcome to ContiguousLyt: A Cooperative Literary Project

A literary journal that is also a conversation between writers.

What is ContiguousLyt?

We are a new kind of literary journal with a unique model and a mission that is as much about fostering newer writers as it is about discovering them.

Our first issue:

Our first issue, featuring Sandra Gail Lambert, will go live on September 30th. Or, the first part of it will. We invite you to write the second part, which will go live on January 15th, 2025. Watch this space!

Our Model:

For each issue, we will feature work by an accomplished writer who will supply a prompt toward which all the submissions for the issue should be written.

For example, we might have published Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, and then the Bard himself might have given us the prompt “Write a piece, prose or poem, in which you praise something in a very unexpected way.” (Of course, we can’t ask Shakespeare for a prompt because he’s dead, and if anyone on our staff can speak to the dead, we’re not telling. They burn witches, you know.)

There will be a ten-week open submission period following the publication of each issue’s piece, interview, and prompt.

As a writer, you should find a way that the prompt speaks to you (or, if it doesn’t, hope the next one does) and work with it in mind. We aren’t looking for pieces that use the piece published as a model, but rather work creates new ways to deploy the craft element discussed in the prompt.

We will choose the 6-8 pieces that we think best create a varied discovery of the different sorts of work that can be generated from a shared idea. Work that isn’t the same as original piece but is, shall we say, contiguous to it.

How to Submit:

Send submissions to: contiguouslyt+submissions@gmail.com.

Note: Submissions are open to everyone except faculty, staff, or students from UTC. If you are a former UTC student, please wait until 3 years after your graduation to send us work. We know, we know. But this is standard for university-sponsored literary journals.

Send other queries or questions to contiguouslyt@gmail.com.

When to Expect an Answer:

Because we are looking to find work that coheres together into a conversation of sorts around the prompt, we won’t be able to send acceptances and rejections until after submissions close. But we promise to work quickly after that. It’s our goal to send out acceptance (and, sadly, rejection) emails within two weeks of the closing date. We may revisit that timeline if we are lucky enough to have more submissions than we can manage in that timeframe, but our first choice will be to bring on more readers so that we can work more quickly.

Money:

Unfortunately, as a university supported literary journal, we do not have money to pay our contributors. This also means we will never charge a reading fee or a subscription fee.

Masthead:

Founding Editor: Sarah Einstein

Managing Editor: Jude Keef

Institutional Sponsor: UTC