We're not taking the summer off by any means — but we do need to catch up on our reading. Thus, we will be suspending our reception of manuscripts from May 1, 2009 to August 31, 2009.  All submissions received with postmarks between those dates will be returned. Please try us again, starting September 1, 2009!

Even from the beginning, Artful Dodge has strived to expand the wide but not infinite boundaries of American literature. We have developed an ongoing interest in translation, especially from Eastern Europe and Third World, and have published well-received special sections on poetry from the Polish underground and the Middle East. One of our more recent issues, Artful Dodge 31/32, featured a section of poetry written and translated from the Native American Ahtna by John Smelcer accompanied by an eye-opening essay entitled "Poems from a Vanishing Language."

Rather than looking at these other literatures as rare exotica, we recognize that American literature right now is particularly open to writing from other languages, to fresh air from mythologies beyond our huge but not infinite cultural and metaphorical borders. We are always on the look out for excellent translations of contemporary literature.

However, Artful Dodge's doors are open to much more than just translations or works rooted in foreign culture. What it boils down to is this: Artful Dodge has always been attracted to writing with a sense of place and looks for work that combines the aesthetic and the human in fresh, unexpected ways. However, don't ask us what that statement means--all we can say is that the work we print shows awareness of the cultural landscape out of which it comes, the words and deeds of people, the language of the bus stop and bar. It involves an illumination of the particular and the concrete, and the transforming of this here-at-hand to the level of the permanent, the mythic. This can be accomplished in ways as diverse as William Carlos Williams' wheelbarrows, Elizabeth Bishop's maps, Langston Hughes' rivers, or William S. Burroughs' disrobed lunches. But some sort of interplay between focus and transcendence must be at work.

So, read Artful Dodge to get an idea of what we print. If you can't afford a copy, then ask your local library to order a subscription--it might as well be Artful Dodge (or some other literary journal) sitting on those shelves instead of Fortune and Cosmo and Gourmet. And, after you've taken a look at the world around you, at the words surrounding you, take a deep breath and send us your work.

Some basic guidlines for submitting work to Artful Dodge are as follows: SASE, typed manuscripts; we gladly accept simultaneous submissions as long as we're immediately notified if the work is accepted elsewhere; allow one week to six months for response (though because of our backlog of reading, our response time lately has been even longer). Please send no more than 30 pages of prose or six poems, though long poems are encouraged. We pay in copies, plus $5 a page. Translations should be submitted with original texts. We also prefer that you indicate you have copyright clearance and/or author permission.