Submission Guidelines
Submitting to Obsidian
Obsidian will accept submissions for our next general issue from May 15, 2023 to October 15, 2023, via our online submission management system. Submissions via postal mail or email will be discarded without response. Before making a submission, please click on the tabs below to read our submission guidelines. To submit, use the Obsidian submission management system found at this link obsidian.submittable.com/submit.
Web Feature Submissions
Submissions for the Obsidian Digital Exhibition are received year round. Submissions will be judged by the editorial board and posted bimonthly
Simultaneous Submissions
Simultaneous submissions to other journals are welcome as long as they are identified as such and we are notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.
Manuscript Guidelines
• Include a short cover letter noting the title(s) of the work(s) submitted and citing major publications and awards, as well as any association or past correspondence with a guest or staff editor.
• Upload your text submission only as a Word (doc, docx), portable document format/PDF (pdf) or rich-text format (rtf) file.
**NO Pages, txt, or Open Office Documents.
• Typed, double-spaced pages (Note: Poetry may be single-spaced)
• Numbered pages.
• Scholarly papers should follow the Chicago Manual of Style for grammar and MLA format for citations and works cited, and the Obsidian Stylesheet (The style sheet is available to download as a pdf file here at this link : Obsidian Style Sheet. The link opens in a new page.
• Margins should be set at no less than 1” and no greater than 1.5”.
• Poetry: submit up to five (5) poems totaling no more than eight (8) pages.
• Fiction, Hybrid genre: 12-point font. No more than twenty (20) pages or 5000 words (whichever is achieved first). Excerpts of longer works are welcome if self-contained.
• Drama/Performance: submit one act or a collection of short scenes no longer than twenty pages (20) following Samuel French or the Dramatists Guild suggested formatting. Excerpts of longer works are welcome if self-contained.
• Translations are welcome if permission has been granted.
• Criticism/critical essays: we are not accepting any unsolicited essay manuscripts at this time. To submit a proposal, please contact the editor.
Image Submission Guidelines
• Include a short cover letter noting the title(s) of the work(s) submitted and citing major publications and awards, as well as any association or past correspondence with a guest or staff editor.
• Submit up to five (5) images totaling no more than 15 MB.
• Upload your submission(s) as jpg or tiff file(s) (tiff preferred) in 300 ppi at the size(s) intended to be used.
• Specify the orientation the image(s) as portrait or landscape.
Audio Submission Guidelines
• Include a short cover letter noting the title(s) of the work(s) submitted and citing major publications and awards, as well as any association or past correspondence
• Submit up to five (5) sound files totaling no more than 30 MB.
• Upload your submission(s) as mp3 or wav file(s).
Video & Media Arts Submission Guidelines
• Include a short cover letter noting the title(s) of the work(s) submitted and citing major publications and awards, as well as any association or past correspondence with a guest or staff editor.
• Submit up to three (3) video and/or gaming files totaling no more than 800 MB.
• Upload your submission(s) as mpg, avi, or mov files, swf, gif, UNITY game files, and HTML5 (with or without CSS and JavaScript markup).
Restrictions
• We do not reprint previously published work.
Notifications and Queries
Expect three to five months for a decision. Using our online submissions system you will be able to track the status of your submission. We accept queries after five months have passed. Queries should be sent via email. They must include:
• Your name.
• The date, genre, and title of the submission.
• The title of the Call for Submissions to which you are responding, if applicable.
Detail from Obsidian 45.2
“In Blackblues There Is This We” by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Detail from Obsidian 45.2
“In Blackblues There Is This We” by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
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