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Call for Submissions: THE RAIN Issue of ArabLit Quarterly

The theme of ArabLit Quarterly’s Spring 2023 issue is THE RAIN. Please send us your pitch or completed piece through Submittable.

We are looking for writing in or about, in anticipation or in the wake of THE RAIN, however that may be interpreted. These could be rain in the literal and traditional sense, as in water coming down out of the clouds, or figurative rainshowers of ­any kind.

‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات Qazwīnī, Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad قزويني، زكريا بن محمد [‎22r] (43/270), British Library: Oriental Manuscripts, Or 14140, in Qatar Digital Library 

We are happy to accept a pitch as a submission. Please make sure your submission fits one of the categories below:

  • Poems of any length. Either in Arabic or translated from Arabic to English and other languages.
  • Short fiction with a strong RAIN element. Either submitted in Arabic or translated from Arabic to English.
  • Translations of classical or modern texts written in or about RAIN, from Arabic.
  • Essays about some aspect of RAIN, contemporary or historical, either translated or originally written in English, but linked to Arabic literature, writers or written with a deep literary engagement.
  • Experimental literature or features related to RAIN.
  • Dictionary features focusing on the word RAIN in its many manifestations.
  • Contributions related to the music of rain celebrations, music calling for rain, music lamenting the rain.
  • Unusual explorations of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab’s “Rain Song,” visual or in words.
  • An exploration of how attitudes toward RAIN are different around the region 
  • Food features about RAIN. (Foods that you eat in the rain? Foods you associate with rain? Foods that incorporate . . . rain?)
  • Short comics incorporating examples of RAIN, either written bilingually, multilingually, originally in Arabic, or with relation to Arabic literature.

Further note:

  • Also welcome: excerpts from plays, caricatures, graphic novels.
  • Interviews with, or pieces by, authors who reference RAIN in their work.
  • Articles generally exploring rain in Arabic literature.

Pitches for this issue should be in by January 31. Drafts of completed works should be in by February 20. We aim to publish March 15.

We are not able to accept:
Fiction and poetry originally written in English. Sorry.

We do accept:
Both pitches and completed works.

Yes, we do pay:
$20/page