Japanese Canadian Place & Memory
call for submissions
Closes January 1, 2025.
Japanese Canadian Place & Memory: Call for Submissions
In Terrain of Memory, Kirsten Emiko McAllister addresses the challenges of moving a post-redress, Japanese Canadian community forward and toward a transformative reimagining: “A new purpose as well as affinities and relations of interdependence are needed if a group is going to sustain itself as a collective…a community has the capacity to reproduce itself over generations.” After the positive impact of writing-based intergenerational gatherings such as Mata Ashita, we hope to support a continued tradition of community storytelling in order to honour the histories we hold close and find new ways of co-authoring collective futures.
We propose this place- and memory-focused anthology of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction from Japanese Canadians affected by displacement and dispossession, and their descendants, at a time when scholars, artists and activists are racing to capture wisdom between generations and move toward interconnected JC storytelling. Japanese Canadian internment is deeply woven into the road map of Canadian nation-building, and yet, so many physical sites of these memories have been erased and redeveloped. As such, this collection serves to re-map JC space, place, and memory overtop the uneven terrain of Canadian history.
We are eager to read memories of Powell Street and PNE grounds, the camps and sugar beet farms, cultural centres or picnics and the places we seem to recall in an instant, however distant they may be. But we are equally excited for inventive snapshots of unexpected JC place-making, whether it’s an intergenerational Zoom room, field trips that bring together new histories and old, or reinvigorated cultural practices shared with other communities. We also hope this anthology will prompt our community to reflect on how our place-making has intersected with settler colonialism and how our collective action has lent strength to other marginalised groups. Throughout this project, we hope to be surprised and encouraged by the ways in which our community continues to grow, change, interact with others, and reflect on our intertwining histories.
In addition to the print anthology published by Véhicule Press, contributors’ work will be published online as part of a digital mapping project that will not only serve as a space for contributors to reflect on and further contextualize their work, but also a way to highlight the connections between their poems, stories, and creative nonfiction.
This collection will be co-edited by Michael Prior (poetry), Kerri Sakamoto (fiction), and Leanne Toshiko Simpson (creative non-fiction), with overarching curatorial guidance from Kyle Yakashiro and artist Mia Ohki, who will be providing visuals for the book. The anthology is currently untitled; its name will take shape alongside our editorial process.
Specifications
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1-10 pages of poetry per submission. Please include your name on every page as well as page numbers. Single-space or 1.15-space your submission.
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One piece of prose up to 3,500 words in length per submission. Please include your name on every page as well as page numbers. Double-space your submission.
Contributors may choose to submit once in each of the three genres, but a new form must be filled out for each individual submission. Format submissions as a Word Document, PDF, or editable Google Doc. Our form will also ask you to include a few keywords to help us understand your specific positioning of place within your piece.
Note: Previously published work from journals or magazines is welcomed (please note the piece’s publication history and relevant permissions in your covering email), but writing already published in books or anthologies will not be accepted. While you are welcome to submit work in more than one genre, please note that writers will only be published in one category.
How to Submit
Submissions are being accepted until January 1, 2025 through the Google Form linked below—but if there are any accessibility barriers or additional questions, please use the “Get in touch” button at the top of this page or email jcplaceandmemory [at] gmail [dot] com directly.
Writers will be notified of results by May 2025; the anthology will be released in May 2026 with Véhicule Press. Writers whose work is accepted for publication will be paid a professional rate of $30 per page. About 30 different writers are expected to be included in this collection, inclusive of a few solicited pieces.
We look forward to reading your work!