Submit your work to these two anthologies

BUT YOU DON’T LOOK SICK: THE REAL LIFE ADVENTURES OF FIBRO BITCHES, LUPUS WARRIORS, AND OTHER SUPER HEROES BATTLING INVISIBLE ILLNESS

AND

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: REFLECTING ON MADNESS AND CHAOS WITHIN

Indie Blu(e) Publishing is thrilled to announce that we will be starting off 2021 with sister anthologies, But You Don’t Look Sick: The Real Life Adventures of Fibro Bitches, Lupus Warriors, and other Super Heroes Battling Invisible Illness AND Through The Looking Glass: Reflecting on Madness and Chaos Within.

The focus of But You Don’t Look Sick: The Real Life Adventures of Fibro Bitches, Lupus Warriors, and other Super Heroes Battling Invisible Illness will be on writing and art from those living with a chronic but invisible physical illness or disability, such as fibromyalgia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, cancer, digestive disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, migraine headache, dysautonomia, etc.

The focus of Through The Looking Glass: Reflecting on Madness and Chaos Within will be on writing and art from those who are living, or have struggled with, mental illness such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, personality disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, or psychotic Disorders.

Writers and artists are welcome to submit to either, or both, of these anthologies as applicable to your lived experience.

Given the high volume of submissions that we are expecting, we ask you to follow the submission guidelines as closely.  If you are submitting to both anthologies, please send your submission in two separate emails.  We will begin to review all submissions after January 1, 2021.

Please note that we are not able to offer monetary compensation or free print copies to contributors to these anthologies; however, all contributors will receive a PDF copy of the anthology they are published in. Indie Blu(e) Publishing has prioritized the accessibility of our titles and providing an outlet for artists and writers who might not otherwise get published over profits since we first launched in the fall of 2018.  Keeping 400 and 500 page anthologies affordable globally in a pandemic is challenging.

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But You Don’t Look Sick: The Real Life Adventures of Fibro Bitches, Lupus Warriors, and other Super Heroes Battling Invisible Illness

Anthology Submission Guidelines

SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED: December 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020

SUBMIT TO: IndieBluSubmissions@gmail.com

SUBJECT LINE:  But You Don’t Look Sick Submission

SUBMISSION FORMATTING GUIDELINES 

• The maximum number of pieces for submission per writer/artist is six (6).
• Writing may include poetry, prose, short fiction, essay, and/or creative nonfiction
• Individual pieces of writing should not exceed 1,000 words

• Writing should be submitted as a single Word attachment to your submission email.  PDFs are the acceptable alternative if you do not have access to Word.  
  • Please use either 12 point Arial or Times Roman font with 1.15 line spacing.
  • Individual pieces of writing in your Word document should be titled, and separated by Page Breaks (not hard returns). A page break is achieved by using Control+Enter.
  • Special formatting is strongly discouraged.  Bold, italic, and multiple font sizes in a single piece are acceptable.
  • Please title all attachments starting with your first name,last name.  
• The exception to this is if you design your submission as a ‘camera ready’ JPG or PNG image that we can import into our publication as we would a photo. In that case, you may use any formatting you wish, but the image must be crisp, 300 DPI, and able to be reproduced clearly in black and white. If in doubt, please contact us at IndieBluSubmissions@gmail.com before submitting.  Your ‘camera ready’ writing must be accompanied by the text in a Word (or PDF) version.
• Artwork submitted for the Anthology must be crisp, 300 DPI, and able to be reproduced clearly in black and white
• You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider non- acceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.
• All contributors to the anthology will receive a PDF copy of the finished book

BIOGRAPHY: All submissions must include a professional biography and cannot be adjusted once submitted. Bios should be 75 words or less long and may include your social media links.

You will be contacted directly through your email when your work is safely received for submission.  If your work is accepted for the anthology, you will receive an agreement letter that you need to complete fully, sign and return to us within 10 days. 

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK We will accept previously published work but must have written permission by the previous publisher attached with your submission if they retain rights to your work.

If you own the copyright, your permission and the date and title of the previous publisher must be included at the bottom of your submission. 

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Through The Looking Glass: Reflecting on Madness and Chaos Within

Anthology Submission Guidelines

SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED: December 15, 2020 through January 15, 2021

SUBMIT TO: IndieBluSubmissions@gmail.com

SUBJECT LINE:  Through The Looking Glass Submission

SUBMISSION FORMATTING GUIDELINES 

• The maximum number of pieces for submission per writer/artist is four (4).
• Writing may include poetry, prose, short fiction, essay, and/or creative nonfiction
• Individual pieces of writing should not exceed 1,000 words

• Writing should be submitted as a single Word attachment to your submission email.  PDFs are the acceptable alternative if you do not have access to Word.  
  • Please use either 12 point Arial or Times Roman font with 1.15 line spacing.
  • Individual pieces of writing in your Word document should be titled, and separated by Page Breaks (not hard returns). A page break is achieved by using Control+Enter.
  • Special formatting is strongly discouraged.  Bold, italic, and multiple font sizes in a single piece are acceptable.
  • Please title all attachments starting with your first name, last name.  
• The exception to this is if you design your submission as a ‘camera ready’ JPG or PNG image that we can import into our publication as we would a photo. In that case, you may use any formatting you wish, but the image must be crisp, 300 DPI, and able to be reproduced clearly in black and white. If in doubt, please contact us at IndieBluSubmissions@gmail.com before submitting.  Your ‘camera ready’ writing must be accompanied by the text in a Word (or PDF) version.
• Artwork submitted for the Anthology must be crisp, 300 DPI, and able to be reproduced clearly in black and white
• You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider non- acceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.
• All contributors to the anthology will receive a PDF copy of the finished book

BIOGRAPHY: All submissions must include a professional biography and cannot be adjusted once submitted. Bios should be 75 words or less long and may include your social media links.

You will be contacted directly through your email when your work is safely received for submission.  If your work is accepted for the anthology, you will receive an agreement letter that you need to complete fully, sign and return to us within 10 days. 

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK We will accept previously published work but must have written permission by the previous publisher attached with your submission if they retain rights to your work.

If you own the copyright, your permission and the date and title of the previous publisher must be included at the bottom of your submission. 

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The wounded eyed girl

Before I knew myself, uttered out loud the words

labeling me a this or a that or a who knows?

I developed feelings for a wounded eye girl

we were kids really, dressing up as Japanese geisha in my room

all festooned in asian print and a little tea set I got for cheap

from china town

we wore chopsticks in our hair and bowed ceremoniously

singing the only song we knew in Japanese

with The Mikado playing in the background

I liked her thin arms and her prominent nose

her knock knee urchin look and bandaged soul

I liked how strong she was even as she looked like she’d fly away

most of all I was attracted to her wounded eyes

for there is something heady and bewitching in

pain

and its infinite manifestations

we’d dress up, I would paint her lips scarlet, we’d put on

funny accents and roll on the floor looking up at glow stars

I still had stuck there with movie posters of vampires

she would fling her arm out across my chest,  tell me of herself

pouring out the suffering of her short life

and it was an awful life before she was

brought to this city we lived in, both from somewhere else

transplants, orphans, ghosts of ourselves with missing DNA

she would tell me of her homeland, how

her father beat her black and blue for

being a girl

why as she got older he took

each of her sisters one by one

and they didn’t come back

whole or even

well repaired

I wanted to lick the pain from her cheeks and hold her to me

until the wound healed

but nothing I could ever do would assuage

the wounds behind her dark brown eyes

so we played as little girls do

building camps and tepees and western saloons

once I played a prostitute and she a cowboy

I cocked my head, snapped a red garter and asked her;

want to have some fun soldier?

she laughed, such a lovely laugh

her black hair and coffee skin, shining with fantasy

she didn’t like being herself anymore than me

we got into our pretend saloon bed

I served her a pretend shot of whiskey

acted ‘saucy’ the way I had learned from TV

she rolled her eyes laboriously like a comedian winking

pulled up my petticoats which were real

and at one point had been my mother’s wedding dress

when she married my father, bare foot and broke

with a velvet ribbon tied around her neck

and our fingers explored each other

as we giggled and changed our voices to all the favorite

TV characters we knew

I think I even tried to be Sue Ellen

I wanted to tell her then, not to stop

to press my mouth to her pomegranate lips

touch her swelling breasts with my own lack of

run myself like a cat across her saffron skin

but even then I knew

damage makes bad bed fellows

we soon changed the game, to cops and robbers

climbing out of the window, swinging from trees

though in every story

there was an element of romance

I thought of the old shows I loved

where the actors were always

dancing around the circumference

of each others heart

how in real life sometimes they married

I told my father; Oh see! Oh see! pretend things can come real!

but some cannot

and she and I grew up

once she told me she had always known I felt like that

I blushed dark red because of course

thinking I’d been subtle when watching her changing clothes

she married a blonde haired man and moved to Australia

had a little boy and hopefully

a ceasing of her alotment of pain

because more than anything I wanted that for her

even more than the beautiful moment

of two girls

laying in sunlight

laughing at imagined things

for the rest and peace and escape

of anything real