Galleyway is an online platform that spotlights opportunities for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers in literature, poetry, television, film, and theater. In addition, we produce audio readings, a video interview series, and facilitate weekly virtual writing sessions.

I founded the site in 2016 in response to the lack of diversity in the publishing, theater, television and film industries. There was (and still is) contention around whose stories are amplified, whose are diminished, and through whose lens stories about people of color are seen. Surveys conducted in the last year revealed that 76% of publishing industry employees are white; 80% of all film jobs that year went to white male writers; and only 27% of the most produced playwrights during the 2019-2020 season were playwrights of color. There’s still a lot of work to be done and I will continue to do my small part with Galleyway. My aim is to champion diverse voices, dismantle stereotypes, and bring accuracy and authenticity to the stories that shape our lives.

I’m excited to share a preview of no fee opportunities for BIPOC writers with deadlines in December 2020. The following list includes calls for submission for lit magazines, anthologies, poetry and theater festivals, a playwriting award, and a mentorship program. The listings are in order of closest deadlines.

Asian American Writers’ Workshop

DEADLINE: December 1, 2020

THEME: The Transpacific Literary Project (an arm of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop that holds a space for writing and translation from East and Southeast Asia) is calling for writing and translations that swirl around in lullabies. Possible projects might include translating a traditional lullaby into another form, creating a contemporary lullaby, or analyzing an existing lullaby.

FORMAT: Online

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: All contributors, writers and translators, will be paid.

FORMS: 

LINK: aaww.submittable.com/submit/176173/lullabies

Alan Pelaez

DEADLINE: December 1, 2020

THEME: Editor Alan Pelaez Lopez invites contributions to a multi-genre anthology of contemporary queer and trans Afro-Latinx writers on memory, care, and futurity published by a notable University Press with a slated publication date of 2021.

FORMAT: print

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: N/A

FORMS: Creative non-fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Comics, Plays and choreopoems, Performance essays / documentation

LINK: www.alanpelaez.com/afro-latinx-anthology/

Oyster River Pages

DEADLINE: December 1, 2020

THEME: The “Composite Dreams” issue is the first of an ongoing series of Oyster River Pages’ efforts into implementing inclusion and diversity deeper into our mission as a magazine. The intention of this collection is to publish Black voices only, to be a space exclusively for and filled by Black writers and artists.

FORMAT: online

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: None

FORMS: Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, and Poetry

LINK: www.oysterriverpages.com/submit

Arizona Theatre Company

DEADLINE: December 1, 2020

THEME: 2021 National Latinx Playwriting Award are now open. Latinx playwrights residing in the United States, its territories or Mexico are encouraged to submit scripts for the award. Each script will be read and evaluated by a culturally diverse panel of theatre artists; finalists will be judged by ATC artistic staff.

FORMAT: theater

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: N/A

FORMS: scripts

LINK: https://arizonatheatre.org/national-latino-playwriting-award/

The Palm Beach Poetry Festival

DEADLINE: December 1, 2020

THEME: The Palm Beach Poetry Festival will offer three fellowships (for Latinx, Asian American, and African American poets) for the upcoming 17th Annual Virtual Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 18-23, 2021.

FORMAT: festival

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: full workshop tuition and admission to all festival events

FORMS: poetry

LINK: www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org/news/2021-palm-beach-poetry-festival-fellowships/

 Migrant Anthology

DEADLINE: December 5, 2020 at 11pm PT

THEME: Seeking bold personal non-fiction essays and poems from migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and displaced people with experience in the United States. We are especially interested in essays and poems from those in the midwest and Border towns. We are centering and giving priority to essays and poems from Indigenous migrants, Black migrants, Asian Pacific Islanders, and Arab communities.

FORMAT: print

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: Contributors will be compensated (a min. of $800)

FORMS: Non-Fiction Essays, Poems

LINK: www.migrantanthology.com/

Periplus

DEADLINE: December 15, 2020

THEME: For this one-year mentorship program, we’re looking for mentees who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color, are in the United States, and are at least 18 years old, and whose writing shows great promise.

FORMAT: N/A

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: None

FORMS: fiction, poetry, nonfiction

LINK: docs.google.com/document/d/1-0SRWxJqx4oNbWVmbq4j9JE5INhisz76–U63UbtncM/mobilebasic

Split Lip Magazine

DEADLINE: December 31, 2020

THEME: Split Lip Magazine is a voice-driven literary journal with a pop culture twist. In an effort to promote Black voices, free submissions will be open for Black writers and artists in all genres for the rest of the year.

FORMAT: online, print

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: Contributors to web issues will receive $50 (paid via PayPal). Print issue contributor payment is $5 per printed page, minimum of $20, plus 2 contributor copies.

FORMS: fiction (flash and short stories), memoir, poetry, art, and photography

LINK: splitlip.submittable.com/submit

The Caribbean Writer

DEADLINE: December 31, 2020

THEME: The Caribbean Writer, an international literary refereed journal with a Caribbean focus, renews its call for submissions for Volume 35 under the 2020 theme: “Diasporic Rhythms: Interrogating the Past, Imagining a Future.”

FORMAT: print

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: Eligible for prizes between $300 – $500

FORMS: poems, short stories, and personal essays

LINK: https://www.thecaribbeanwriter.org/2020/03/22/accepting-submissions-for-volume-35/

KC Melting Pot Theatre

DEADLINE: DEADLINE: December 31, 2020

THEME: Calling for original, full length plays by Black playwrights. The finalists will have their work performed as a staged reading during our New Play Festival July 9 – 11, 2021.

FORMAT: theater

SUBMISSION FEE: None

PAYMENT: None

FORMS: plays

LINK: https://www.kcmeltingpot.com/

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Camille Wanliss is a New York-based writer and founder of Galleyway, a site championing diverse voices in poetry, literature, television, film, and theater. Her fiction work and essays have been published in Raising Mothers, Anomaly, Weird Sister, Kweli Journal, The Indypendent, The Feminist Wire, and Clutch Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of the Adria Schwartz Award in Women’s Fiction and her short story “Leverage” was shortlisted for the Small Axe Literary Prize. Fellowships and residencies include Vermont Studio Center and Writing in the Margins. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York.

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