Submission Guidelines

***The Syzygy People section is currently undergoing reconstruction. Please check back for new guidelines soon, as these no longer apply; although, we still will be accepting submissions for this section. Please email info@syzygypoets.com for more information and guidelines.***

Syzygy People Submission Guidelines

In our Syzygy People section of our website, we strive to highlight a few local artists, poets, and musicians each month by hosting a short bio, further links to explore, and a small sample of their quality work. Below you will find guidelines for submissions and how to submit to be accepted as one of our monthly Syzygy People. Please direct any questions about submitting or submission guidelines to info@syzygypoets.com instead of the submissions email address.

General Guidelines

• Syzygy People and www.syzygypoets.com are part of a non-profit organization. Syzygy People is not a contest. There are no costs to submit to become a monthly feature on Syzygy People, and there are no rewards, financial or otherwise, or other recognition beyond inclusion in the monthly Syzygy People feature on our website.

• Submissions are accepted from the 1st day of the month to the 15th day of the month to be chosen as a feature for the following months.

• If you are not selected to be featured the following month after submission, your submission will remain in active consideration for subsequent months until featured. If you wish for a submission to no longer be considered to be featured, please notify us in writing by the same method you originally submitted.

• Only one submission (5-10 works) will be accepted each month, but you may send a new submission each month for consideration. Each submission will be considered separately and equally for submission each month until it is featured.

• All submitted works must be original work. By submitting you attest that it is your own work submitted. Plagiarism will disqualify you from current and future selection for Syzygy People or any facet of Syzygy or www.syzygypoets.com.

• Submissions must be created and performed by one person or entity. An entity may consist of more than one person if each contributor is named and all works submitted are created by all persons within the entity, with all persons named giving permission for submission and inclusion. All songs must be performed and recorded acoustically. All songs must be original work by the artist.

• You will be notified via e-mail of your acceptance as a feature on Syzygy People at least one week before the start of the month in which you will be featured.

• Features will run from the 1st day of the month featured until the last day of the month featured. If you wish to no longer be featured, we must receive a request in writing by the 15th day of the month preceding the first month in which you do not want to be featured. After the 15th of the preceding month www.syzygy.com reserves the right to display any submitted works, pictures, links, names, and bios that were submitted that following month. You may notify us to withdraw one particular submission or all of your submissions from consideration by the 15th to be excluded the following month and then on.

• Syzygy People is not considered by Syzygy a publication or an e-zine. Previously unpublished works submitted are considered by Syzygy as works in progress. Features will not be archived on our website for public access as of the beginning of the month following the month featured. For reference information for your feature, please contact Syzygy using the contact email address in the heading paragraph of this page with your name and the month you were featured.

• Syzygy People featured artists will be chosen by Syzygy’s staff of editors. While we will strive to exercise complete objectivity, subjective preferences may emerge (in which case our staff will often butt heads). We will strive to feature not only the best quality regional writing, art work, and music possible, but diversity in monthly features is also important to us. We might “hold back” an artist for another month to maintain a sense of diversity in artform and style within our Syzygy People feature for that month.

• Published and unpublished works can be submitted to be featured. All rights retained by the artist. As we do not consider this a publication or e-zine, any unpublished work remains a work in progress, this includes First Serial Rights. By submitting, you give www.syzygypoets.com permission to post any and all work submitted on their website for a period of at least 28 days, but not more than 33 days, after which www.syzygypoets.com will retain this permission to repost a feature of your work and other information until notified otherwise in writing by one of the submission methods outlined in the “How and What to Submit” section of this webpage.

• www.syzygypoets.com reserves the right to modify the guidelines at any time without notice. Please check back for changes or additions when submitting.

How and What to Submit

• Please send all submissions to submissions@syzygypoets.com . All submissions must be received by the 15th of the month to be considered for the following month.

• Submit 5 to 10 previously published or unpublished sample works, 3 to 5 will be chosen as samples on our site, in the following formats:
1. Poems and writing: attached .doc or .txt format, or at the bottom of the body of your text under the heading “samples”.
2. Photographs or pictures of artwork: attach .jpg files only.
3. Acoustic Songs: must be emailed in .mp3 or .wav format. Songs must also be hosted on a separate site with the html embed code sent for each song by name in the body of the submission.

• Include your name, address, email address, and phone number in the body of your email. Also in the body, please indicate what, if any, of this information besides your name (name must be included) you would like to share on our website during the term of your feature on Syzygy People. Other than your name, personal information will not be shared with the public unless you indicate otherwise.

• Please include a bio in the body of your submission up to 1000 words. Anything over 1000 words gives Syzygy the right to cut, edit, and make up what we like in order to make it fit our space requirements or read to our creative discretion. You may and are encouraged to submit a photograph of yourself, logo, or other nonoffensive uncopyrighted picture to represent yourself (in .jpg format) to be included at the head of your bio. If no photo is available another inoffensive icon will be chosen for this space.

• In the body of your submission, after the bio, please include any links that you would like to be listed after your bio. These can be links to your personal webpage, personal blog, or a site featuring your work. E-commerce sites (unless it specifically promotes your work), adult sites, and other questionable sites will not be accepted. If in doubt, please include the site and we will notify you if it is not acceptable. Please place a number, 1-5, next to each link. No more than five links will be accepted.

• If you would like to hyperlink any words in your bio to specific links, please indicate this by putting the number of the link to be hyperlinked directly after the word or phrase you would like hyperlinked (if more than one word is to be hyperlinked, please put phrase in brackets, followed by the link number).

• Please also include any upcoming events, shows, or readings including venue, date, time and any other relevant information after your bio in the body of your submission.

Syzygy

Aligning poetry, music, and the arts