The Bournemouth Journal: We Contain Multitudes.
A journal of contemporary literature and art, The Bournemouth Journal publishes fiction, poetry, and art twice a year, celebrating a diverse range of voices, themes, and styles. Produced by the staff and students of Bournemouth University’s MA in Creative Writing and Publishing, each issue highlights exceptional work that pushes boundaries and inspires.
In collaboration with The Bournemouth Writing Festival, we also judge and publish The Bournemouth Writing Prize, awarding £500 annually for poetry and £500 for prose.
What we publish:
In ‘Song of Myself,’ Walt Whitman wrote: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes).’ The Bournemouth Journal is a literary review that strives to be as contradictory and complex as our authors.
Each issue is a study in contrasts, celebrating an extraordinary range of styles, themes, and perspectives. Our goal: to prove that all types of writing can peacefully coexist between the same covers. We love inventive, unconventional works that defy genre boundaries, but we also enjoy a good, old-fashioned yarn with a well-crafted plot.
Please submit pieces written in English, but some code-switching between languages and dialects is welcome. We are genre-agnostic and stylistically promiscuous. Send us your mutations and your mashups, your first-person memoirs and your completely invented worlds.
Our rotating team of editors ensures that our tastes are constantly refreshed, but we are always on the lookout for something unexpected and new, seeking to spotlight writers who have never been published alongside well established authors. Do we publish genre fiction? Literary fiction? Poetry? Yes, yes, and yes. Our tastes are expansive, but we’re not merely eclectic, we’re complex. Spare us your one dimensional heroes and villains, your saints and victims. Self-flagellating confessionals, tales of woe, and bitter invective don’t interest us. We admire writers who challenge their own belief systems, breaking with fixed patterns, and discovering new insights about themselves and others. We’re drawn to anything that reflects the raw, vibrant, fleshy, fleeting condition of being human.
Who we publish:
In addition to showcasing a wide range of writing, we also celebrate a wide range of writers, including, but not limited to, LGBTQIA+ authors, BIPOC authors, female-identifying authors, unpublished authors, authors with disabilities, and economically marginalised authors. We enjoy supporting work from the Southwest of England, but we seek submissions from anywhere on the planet.
As our journal is still in its infancy, issues are only available in a print-on-demand format and contributions are unpaid. Though our readership is small, it is a dedicated and engaged audience passionate about contemporary literature and art.
In addition to our biannual issues, The Bournemouth Journal produces outreach anthologies honouring the work of various creative communities. And working in partnership with The Bournemouth Writing Festival, we judge, edit and produce The Bournemouth Writing Prize, which offers an annual award of £500 for poetry and £500 for prose.