Guidelines for Contributors

To do list

This page is a set of notes to help contributors send in their submissions for issues of Asylum Magazine.We are always looking for original articles, pictures and creative writing.

Read through these notes and follow the instructions before emailing your submissions in.  This helps us organise the publishing so you don’t have to. If you have any questions please send them via the contact page.  Below is some information on:

  • Notes for Contributors
  • Single Article Contributions
  • Poems, Creative Writing
  • Pictures
  • Special Issues
  • Deadlines

spelling and grammar

Notes for Contributors

Articles are accepted in good faith and every effort is made to ensure fairness and veracity. Editing often requires minor corrections to contributions otherwise generally accepted ‘as they stand’. Of course, we try to maintain the integrity of what each contributor seems to intend, and the manner in which it is expressed.

However, the editorial collective consists of unpaid volunteers who have to fit work for Asylum magazine into their spare time, whilst also meeting strict publishing deadlines. Therefore, except to resolve substantial problems of meaning, content or style, we cannot guarantee to conduct ongoing correspondence with every contributor in relation to a normal edit.

By ‘minor corrections’ and ‘a normal edit’ we mean concern with: misspelling or mis-typing; punctuation and grammatical mistakes; usages which are wrong, misleading, inconsistent or incomprehensibly esoteric (reader-unfriendly jargon); repetitions or redundancies; poorly structured, muddled, ambiguous, jarring or confusingly long sentences; confusions of tense, gender or number; wrong or confusing terms, numerations, units, statistics, dates, etc.; glaring or obviously unintended inconsistencies; technical or terminological ambiguities or disambiguations; statements in clear conflict with general (scientific) knowledge…

Also: rearranging phrases, sentences or paragraphs which are not easily deciphered, so as to reduce ambiguity/increase clarity; reconfiguring footnotes to suit house-style; correcting errors in citations; breaking-up dense text with sub-headings; adding a clarifying heading or synopsis; etc. However, authors are responsible for any material submitted as ‘poetry’; such contributions are not edited.


 

written article

Single Article Contributions

  1. We aim to publish most articles at either up to 800 or up to 1600 words (that’s 1 or 2 pages) and sometimes longer if we think the subject matters warrants this (up to 3,000 in very exceptional circumstances – but best to check with editors first if you plan to submit a longer piece).
  2. Please use as few footnotes as possible. (Readers can usually be referred to a ‘full article’ if they are interested.) Please place any footnotes at end of article and in reduced font-size.
  3. One or two lines of author biography is good.
  4. The Editor will contact the author if significant excisions or changes seem necessary. Otherwise this function is only exercised as proof-reading for typos, slight changes to grammar so as the clarify meanings, rendering into colloquial English articles from non-English contributors, etc.
  5. We ask that authors submit articles in the knowledge that although we will always endeavour to negotiate editorial changes with the author, sometimes we have to make editorial decisions without being able to check with the author first (because we work to a tight deadlines and all editorial work on Asylum magazine is unpaid ‘spare time’ labour).
  6. Please submit writings by email attachments to [email protected], and in WORD, , Google Docs, or other text formats.

 

creative writing

Creative Writing

  1. We welcome poems, short stories and other forms of creative writing.
  2. Please submit no more than five poems.  It is only exceptionally that we will publish a poem that is long than forty lines.
  3. Flash fiction (very short prose) from 50 words to 1,000 words will be considered, as well as short fiction up to 2,000 words maximum.
  4. An option is to consider including original images to accompany your piece, but these must be of high quality, at least 300 dpi.
  5. Usually work won’t be accepted if already published, including online/websites/blogs. Occasionally work will be republished with original publication or website/blog credited.
  6. Please include your name and contact details (email preferably) on each page of the submission.
  7. Please save each poem, or prose piece, as a separate file – using your name and the title as the file name.  If you send a zip file, please ensure it is clearly labelled with your name.
  8. Submissions to be sent to [email protected] using WORD, Google Docs, or other text formats.
  9. Contributors are welcome to submit on subsequent occasions, but please allow a break of 3 months before submitting again.

pictures

Pictures

  1. We especially welcome images to publish in the magazine.
  2. The covers & inside covers are colour-printed. The rest is black & white. This means that most graphics have to be in fairly bold line or in photos which are either B&W or will translate quite easily into B&W.
  3. Graphics must be sent as jpegs (or equivalent) with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. (Graphics on the web are normally much lower than that.)
  4. Copyright: permission must given for the use of any graphic. Requirements 2 and 3 mean that graphics CANNOT be lifted straight from the web.

 

guidelines

Special Issue Guidelines

  1. Excluding the two covers & the inside front-cover (standardised for Contacts, Contents & publisher’s information) there are 29 pages to fill. So this normally means a maximum 20,00 words for the whole magazine.
  2. We aim to publish most articles at either up to 800 or up to 1600 words (that’s 1 or 2 pages) and sometimes longer if we think the subject matters warrants this (up to 3,000 in very exceptional circumstances – but best to check with editors first if you plan to submit a longer piece).
  3. After headings, graphics & so on, assume 800 words per page.
  4. Encourage contributors to use as few footnotes as possible. (Readers can usually be referred to a ‘full article’ if they are interested.) Please place footnotes at the end of the article and in reduced font-size.
  5. One or two lines of author biography for each contribution is good.
  6. The Editor will contact the author if significant excisions or changes seem necessary. Otherwise this function is only exercised as proof-reading for typos, slight changes to grammar so as the clarify meanings, rendering into colloquial English articles from non-English contributors, etc., etc.
  7. We ask that authors submit articles in the knowledge that although we will always endeavour to negotiate editorial changes with the author, sometimes we have to make editorial decisions without being able to check with the author first (because we work to a tight deadlines and all editorial work on Asylum magazine is unpaid ‘spare time’ labour).
  8. Please submit special issues by email attachments to [email protected], with individual contributions in WORD, Google Docs, or other text formats.

 

deadlines

Deadlines

  1. If you have material in your hands, please forward it to [email protected] as soon as possible. Work on Asylum is not paid. It is a ‘spare-time’ labour, so has to be fitted into the gaps, as and when, between people otherwise trying to make a living.
  2. If you are submitting material to a particular deadline (and especially if you are organising a whole issue) please keep the Editor regularly informed about the state of play.
  3. Normally, do not expect anything to reach publication inside 6 months. This enterprise is not face-to-face in an office, but long-distance and waiting for people with busy lives to respond to emails, etc. The timescale for production of an issue: 3 months to collate material, 2 months to edit & organise the issue, 1 month at the publishers for layout, professional proof-reading, printing = 6 months.
  4. The executive editor will collaborate with anyone who wishes to submit material or put together a particular issue of the magazine (for example, on behalf of a particular mental health group). But we do have to meet deadlines.