fiction, letters, essays, travel-writing,
news, drama, mixed genre media, news, art, music/sound, and more.
We prefer works of language genius, provocation, malignant brilliance,
practical utopianism, profound terror, sexual delirium, and resolute
enmity against commonplace, cliché, and convention. Would-be
contributors should look up previous issues of Exquisite Corpse
for an idea of how we cause damage and promote health.
Our contributors
have included superstars such as James Broughton, Allen Ginsberg,
William Burroughs, Edouard Roditi, and Ted Berrigan, all of whom
have now gone supernova, but are currently serving on our Inner
Governing Board. Living greats, such as Anselm Hollo, Mike Topp,
Kirby Olson, Mauricio Montiel, Teresa Bergen and Robin Becker, are
frequent contributors. On the other hand, we love new writers. Be
advised, however, that the Corpse has started up its historic Body
Bag again. The Cyber Bag will continue our great tradition of allowing
contributors to see how their work was received by our staff, thus
honoring all who are brave and daring, with a sense of humor and
adventure.
Regarding rights:
The Corpse frowns upon multiple submissions; it is therefore expected
that the piece has never been published before. If an acceptance
letter is sent to the author, then he or she agrees to our terms,
which are: the Corpse gets exclusive first-time on-line/electronic
rights. After we publish, all rights, both cyber, print, audio,
or any other media, belong to the author. If the work/s should be
published in the future, we ask only for a credit line that reads:
"First published in Exquisite Corpse #__."
1. Text Attachments:
All submissions
must be sent as attachments. Almost all word processing programs
include the option to "save as" Rich Text Format. We recommend
saving as Rich Text Format (.rtf) because it will preserve your
formatting, and it will be compatible with all of our computers.
(See instructions below) In the case of more than one submission,
please include all of your submissions within one attached document.
Name your document after your last name or the last name of your
pen name. Do not name your document "Exquisite Corpse"
or "Corpse".
Note: We
cannot read Wordstar documents.
Note: You
need not send an attachment if you are just sending a quick e-mail
or comment in the heat of passion!
How to save
your document as Rich Text Format from MS Word (It is a similar
process in Worperfect) :
a. Open your
document.
b. Open the "file" menu.
c. Choose "save as," not "save," and also
make sure not to use the save icon, which looks like a floppy
disk.
d. A dialog box will open--at the very bottom there is a box that
says "Save as type:" on the left side.
e. Next to this box is a little button with a triangle pointing
down. Click on it, and a drop-down menu will appear.
f. Scroll down in the drop down menu until you find Rich Text
Format, and then choose it.
g. Name your document after your last name or the last name of
your pen name.
h. Now click save as you normally would in the dialog box.\
Note:
Older Windows sometimes do not fully convert in translation. If
you receive a message from us that begins, "Howdy! Your message
did not compute..." then try saving it in MS Word (.doc).
If you receive the message again, locate a computer nerd for assistance.
If a computer nerd is not available, paste your text directly
into the e-mail as a last resort.
How to send
attachments in Windows and Macintosh:
a. Compose and
save your document. Did you make sure that all of your contact
information is in the document? If not, please add it, and save
again. If so, continue.
b. Address an e-mail to us (submissions@corpse.org).
c. In your e-mail program, click the file attachment button on
the toolbar. Almost universally, the file attachment button includes
a picture of a paperclip. If you do not have a button, look in
the menus for a command like "Attach File," and choose
it.
d. A dialog box will open. Browse to the directory in which your
document is saved, and double click quickly on your document's
icon. Your document should now be attached to your e-mail.
e. Click "Send."
Note: We
often experience translation problems when works composed on Apple
and Mac are sent to us. If you receive a message from us that
begins, "Howdy! Your message did not compute..." then
try saving it in Word (.doc) if you have that option. If you receive
the message again, locate a computer nerd for assistance. If a
computer nerd is not available, paste your text directly into
the e-mail as a last resort.
2. Contact
Information:
All submissions
must have all of your contact information listed within the attachment
as well as on the letter it is attached to. If your contact information
is not in the attachment, we will not know who wrote the piece.
3. Footnotes,
Annotations, End Notes and the Like:
Using footnotes
does not work for us; they do not always arrive as the writer intended
them, and superscripting causes awkward spacings between lines when
work is placed on html templates. Therefore, please convert all
footnotes into End Notes by simply putting parentheses around the
number which follows whatever you are noting. Then, at the end of
your piece, write "End Notes" and list your notes. For
an example of the way we like our End Notes, go to http://corpse.org/archives/issue_8/foreign_desk/woods.htm
and take a look.
4. Dashes,
Em dashes, Hyphens:
Please use the
double dash (--) instead of the em dash, or long dash, since these
characters are often replaced by hyphens when they go through computer
translations, thus causing occasional editorial confusion and misprints.
5. Page Limit:
All submissions
must contain no more than 15 double-spaced pages for prose. Poetry,
however, can be single-spaced, but should not surpass 10 pages per
submission. We will occasionally make exceptions for essays of greater
length.
6. Acceptance:
If we wish to
publish your submission, we will send you an acceptance letter with
which you may request links to your e-mail address (or website/s)
if you so choose. We can also make direct links to Amazon.com if
you have publications that they carry (we will need ISBN #s for
this). It usually takes us a few weeks to read submissions after
they arrive. Sometimes it takes longer, if we are busy putting an
issue together or if it is the summer and the editors are volunteering
their time rather than getting paid. If you don't hear from us in
more than three months after receiving our acknowledgement of receiving
your work, it is likely that you may find yourself in an upcoming
Cyber Bag. Still, there is the possibility that we put you in our
"Holding Bin," and that you could be plucked from there
at any instant. If we do not accept your work, this is not always
an indication that we are not interested. Sometimes, we fill up
sections (especially poetry) early, and do not have the space to
publish until the next issue. Regardless, please do not write to
the editors asking what your status is; refer to the historic and
entertaining Cyber Bag instead. Also, after accepting work, we cannot
incorporate any changes by the author. When a contributor answers
the author information questionnaire attached to the acceptance
letter, this is an informal agreement between the contributor and
the Corpse granting the Corpse the right to proofread the contributor's
work and make any editorial corrections we see fit--which are always
minor, if we make any at all. Thus, a work should be in its final
final stage upon being submitted to the Corpse.
7. Images:
Art submissions
should be sent in JPEG (preferably) or GIF format. Please do not
send more than 300kb at a time. The editors have set their modem
connections on their e-mail programs to ignore messages over 300kb
because of time/storage constraints. Although you may send 300kb,
the smallest file size that gets your idea across will be the easiest
for us. However, we may and probably will request a higher resolution
copy should we decide to use your piece.
8. Music/Sound:
Send CDs through
the mail (below).
9. After Publication
Changes:
If you notice
a mistake in anything published by the Corpse--in somebody else's
work or your own--we do have the luxury of making these corrections.
Just drop a line to submissions@corpse.org.
10. Snail Mail:
We do not accept
papyrus-based submissions anymore. However, if you would like us
to review a book, CD, chapbook, journal, video, or something else
(some works are cited in the Cyber Bag), send to:
Editors
Exquisite Corpse
PO Box 25051
Baton Rouge, LA 70894
Send
submissions to: submissions@corpse.org