Literary News: Call for Submissions to Kitaab Quarterly: Inaugural issue of Kitaab's Quarterly Ezine

Call for Submissions to Kitaab Quarterly – Inaugural issue of Kitaab’s quarterly ezine.

Kitaab is about to launch a brand new quarterly e-magazine – Kitaab Quarterly. The first issue, scheduled for January 2023, will include stories, essays, artwork, photo essays, reviews, and a dash of verse. The magazine will have an ISSN registration.

The ezine will be in digital format. It will be available on Amazon as an ebook at a nominal cost.

About Kitaab

Kitaab, which means “book” in many Asian languages, was founded in 2005 by journalist and writer Zafar Anjum in Singapore as a space to celebrate and critique Asian writing in English. The revamped website was launched in July 2013 with a much stronger focus.

Kitaab aims to help you avoid information overload which is the curse of the information age. The idea behind Kitaab is to create a link-based information storehouse where the most important stories on Asian writers and writing are carefully curated so that lovers of Asian writing do not have to look anywhere else for the assorted news and views on their favourite books and writers. All they need to do is to visit Kitaab and quench their literary thirst.

Headquartered in Singapore, Kitaab provides a writing and publishing platform for emerging and seasoned writers from the region to express themselves creatively. Learn more about our publishing and other media programmes here.

Kitaab is only a few years old and it is already being read in many parts of the world. Kitaab welcomes your feedback, support, and contributions.

Kitaab is owned and managed by Kitaab International Pte. Ltd., Singapore.

About the Guest Editor

Rajat Chaudhuri, novelist, cli-fi author and anthologist will be guest-editing the inaugural volume of Kitaab Quarterly.

Rajat Chaudhuri is an Indian novelist and short story writer. He is the author of the critically acclaimed works Hotel Calcutta (2013), a short story cycle; The Butterfly Effect (2018), the novel Amber Dusk (2007), and other books. He is also an environment columnist, book reviewer, and literary critic. His fiction blends persuasive storytelling with experiments in genre, structure, and form while addressing themes like climate change, biotechnology, urbanism, and genetic engineering. His fiction has been featured in the climate change video game Survive the Century.

He is the Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellow (2014) of the University of Chichester, United Kingdom, Hawthornden Castle Fellow, Scotland, United Kingdom, and a part of the Fellow of Sangam House International Writers’ Residency (2010), India. He is a Korean Arts Council-InKo sponsored resident writer (2013) at Toji Cultural Centre, which was set up by acclaimed Korean novelist Park Kyung-ni.

The theme for the Inaugural issue of Kitaab Quarterly

The theme chosen by our guest editor for this inaugural issue is `Uncanny’. We expect submissions to engage and creatively interpret the `uncanny’ in their stories, images, and verse. The reviews section will not have any theme.

As climate change is arguably the biggest existential problem that we face today, we will show some preference towards stories (prose and graphic), poetry, artwork, and photography about the `climate uncanny’ – how climate change transforms the world around us into a strange, unrecognizable and creepy place, where the unthinkable happens, and which provokes an uneasy feeling that affects our inner worlds. Anthropogenic climate change and the uncanny must have a significant role in your stories and not just be part of the setting.

Besides the climate uncanny we would also love to see works that address other meanings of the uncanny as in the `uncanny valley’ of robotics and virtual worlds, the strangeness of the familiar, the Freudian uncanny with or without its climate change connections, doubles, doppelgangers, animated dolls, Frankenstein’s monsters and so on. Send us your best work!

For a deeper understanding of the climate uncanny, you may want to read Gregers Andersen’s essay. For a general discussion about the uncanny, see this essay and the Wikipedia article on the subject.

What to submit?

This inaugural issue will showcase:

Short Stories (2500-3500 words)
Essays (3000-4000 words)
Book reviews (up to 2000 words)
Photo essays
Artwork (digital art, graphic short fiction)
Poetry (3 short poems per submission).
Translations from Asian languages to English are welcome.

Please note:

The deadline for submissions is 30th November 2022.
We are unable to accept work that has appeared anywhere in print or online, including in social media and blogs.
Kitaab being an Asian writing platform, the Kitaab Quarterly will publish Asian writers from anywhere in the world or those with significant connections with Asia through family ties, background, association, work, etc.
Submissions with Asian settings by those not connected to Asia are also welcome
Contributors to the Kitaab Quarterly will get free membership of Kitaab + a pdf copy of the issue their work has been published in.

How to Submit

Please send your submissions with a 150-word bio, as MSWord files to editor@kitaabinternational.com with the subject line: Kitaab Quarterly <Category of your submission>

Photos and artwork should be high-resolution jpg or png files.

About Author

Editor_Kitaab

Namrata is a published author who enjoys writing stories and think pieces on travel, relationships, and gender. She is a UEA alumnus and has studied travel writing at the University of Sydney.

She is also an independent editor and a book reviewer. Her writings can be found on various sites and magazines like the Asian Review of Books, Contemporary South Asia Journal of King’s College-London, Mad in Asia, The Friday Times, Daily Star, The Scroll, Feminism in India, The Brown Orient Journal, Inkspire Journal, Moonlight Journal, The Same, Chronic Pain India and Cafe Dissensus.

Her short stories have been a part of various anthologies . She has also published two short story collections of her own along with two solo titles as well. She is currently working on her debut novel. She loves travelling the length and breadth of the world and enjoys capturing the magic of life in her words. She is always in pursuit of a new country and a new story.

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