Dear Colleagues,
The Community Literacy Journal (CLJ) is excited to accept submissions for the fifth edition of Coda: Community Writing + Creative Work, a creative section dedicated to writers whose work relates to community engagement, to writing as a form of activism, and to preserving the work that ensues from community writing projects.
We value lived experience and the communities that nurture writing and expression. We believe that the creative impulse resides in everyone and that this can be a force for personal, community, and societal transformation.
We are soliciting creative work in any genre (fiction, poetry, memoir, plays, drawings, photography, and more) in Global Englishes. We are particularly interested in:
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Writing that engages multiple communities to advocate for social change
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Creative nonfiction that explores the messiness and complexity of community writing
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Creative work about, with, or from communities that is beautiful, experimental, or offbeat, or or that otherwise reflects a community context
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Collaborative and multivocal work
If you don’t see your particular writing approach mentioned here, write to us at the address below, and we’d be happy to talk about your potential contribution! Whatever you have written, if you have written it in a community context that’s meaningful to you, we want to read it.
Personal Reflection: Because we value creative processes, we’re just as interested in how an author (or a group of authors) creates a piece of writing or art as we are in the piece itself. For this reason, we publish personal reflections telling how each piece came to be. Along with your submission, please include a short reflection, perhaps one or two paragraphs, telling us about how your work emerged. You may include information about how your piece reflects community engagement, what inspired you to create your piece, your personal journey as a writer; or about your community writing group (if you belong to one).
Optional Agenda For Feedback: We respond to every submission we receive with a brief and honest explanation for our decision. If there are areas of your work that you especially want feedback on or areas that you do not want us to comment on, please let us know.
Submission Guidelines:
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We are soliciting poetry, short stories, memoirs, essays, comics, plays, photography, and drawings.
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Please submit up to three poems; one section of prose (a story or an essay) up to 3,500 words; a one-act play up to 10 minutes; or high resolution visual images (only in black and white).
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We ask authors to only submit work composed, translated, and/or developed without Generative Artificial Intelligence because of the personal, cultural, social, economic, and environmental harms these technologies perpetuate.
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Our submission deadline is December 18, 2026. We intend to have editorial decisions sent to authors no later than February 1, 2027.
Submission Form Contact Form
Website
Gabrielle Isabel Kelenyi (kuh-LAY-knee), PhD
Assistant Professor of English
Assistant Director of the College Writing Program
Interim Faculty Director of the Landis Center for Community Engagement
kelenyig l pronouns: she/her/hers
Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042