We publish essays, reviews, creative writing, and profiles and interviews with culture makers from and about writers and artists in Southeast Asia and those of the Southeast Asian diaspora. Southeast Asia encompasses: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. We publish primarily in English and welcome pieces in other languages if there is an English translation as well. diaCRITICS offers an honorarium of $75 per prose piece or interview and $50 per poem.

Guidelines for Submissions

Please send PDF or Word .docx submissions. Include a brief bio. In the subject line, please provide the title and the genre or series of your submission. For example: “Book review: A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure” or “this is for mẹ: Coffee and Culture with Phin.” Pitches for essays and profiles are welcomed. All submissions should be sent to [email protected] Preferred word limit: Limit poetry to 10 pages and prose to 2,500 words.

SUBMIT

Our Sections

Creative works: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid forms

this is for mẹ: works exploring the subjects of mothers, motherhood, motherlands, mother tongues and family. 

Profiles: Interviews or write-ups of writers, artists, organizations, or projects within and about the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora.

Essays: Commentary on matters of cultural, political, personal, and aesthetic concern for the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora.

Reviews: Reviews of books, films, shows, performance, visual art, and music by creatives within the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora. If you’re a publisher, author, or publicist and would like to submit a book for review consideration, please contact us. If you would like to contribute a review, contact us with a query or let us know your interest and the genre(s) you would like to write about; please provide links to any previous work if possible. For a list of books to review, visit this list.

Special Call For Submissions

STUDENT PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION TODAY

diaCRITICS is seeking submissions from Southeast Asian students and Southeast Asian diaspora students—at all university levels (graduates and undergraduates), as well as high school levels—about their perspectives, expectations, and experiences of education. How do students understand and view their education amidst: the uncertainties of a global economy, widening social and health inequities, the COVID pandemic, the perils and challenges of climate change, the exorbitant costs and competitiveness of higher education, the threat of gun violence and school shootings, and any other education-related topic students want to address?

Works in any form of media or genre are welcomed, so long as they can be published on the diaCRITICS website. Please send submissions to: [email protected].

SOUTHEAST ASIAN NEW YEARS

While Vietnam celebrated the Lunar New Year, back on January 22, diaCRITICS acknowledges that many other Southeast Asian countries follow a different tradition. This includes, but is not limited to, Thingyan, from Myanmar, Pi Mai, from Laos, Songkran, from Thailand, and Choul Chnam Thmey or Moha Sankranti, from Cambodia. While these countries welcome the New Year with their own traditions, they are all connected by the idea of transformation. During these celebrations, all these countries underline the importance of spiritual cleansing, through water rituals, to usher in prosperity and fortune for the upcoming year. This special series embodies the idea of change and movement. We welcome pieces that channel this sentiment.

For this special series we want to honor these new year celebrations and traditions. We want to hear from you!

What we would like to know:

• What do these holiday traditions mean to those of us in the diaspora?
• What memories do you have of celebrating?
• How do you see change and transformation?
• What does it mean to “cleanse” yourself for the New Year?

Works in any form of media or genre are welcomed, so long as they can be published on the diaCRITICS website. We publish primarily in English and welcome pieces in other languages if there is an English translation as well. diaCRITICS offers an honorarium of $75 per prose piece or interview and $50 per poem. Please send submissions to: [email protected] Deadline is March 20 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

We look forward to reading your work and/or hearing from you!