The theme for our September 1 to December 1, 2011 reading period is “labor.” What’s fun about the theme of “labor” is that it can mean a lot of things. It can refer to work of all kinds. It can mean manual labor, or it can refer to your high-paying job in marketing. It can refer to work you do in the house and outside. It can be emotional labor. It can be volunteer labor. It can refer to the labor of reading and of writing. Submissions can also be related to labor movements, current or historical or both. It could even be about going into labor.

We will accept submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that incorporate this theme, as well as non-themed submissions, via our online submission manager. As always, our theme is purposefully nebulous, providing flexibility for how writers might consider “labor” in a surprising manner.