Last date to submit: 20th of November.

Thank you for considering decoloniszing our bookshelves as a platform for your work. Below are certain guidelines that we would love for you to keep in mind while submitting content to us. Please feel free to reach out at [email protected] with any comments/questions/concerns.

General disclaimer:

  1. decolonizing our bookshelves is run by a group of volunteers. While we would love to be able to, we find ourselves unable to provide monetary compensation to our contributors. Thank you for considering our platform as an outlet for your work.
  2. If you choose to submit your work to us, please note that this is completely and fully voluntary.
  3. When you submit your work to us, you still retain the full rights to it. In other words, you may choose to submit the same content to any other publication/publish it on your own blog, or do with it what you like with an acknowledgement that it first appeared in dob. If at any point you'd like us to take down your previously submitted work from our platform, let us know, we can have it removed. The Zing only accepts previously unpublished work (under this definition, we include work that has only appeared on your personal social media or personal blog.
  4. We do not accept plagiarised work. Your submissions should be original with inspirations or sources properly credited. Sources and inspirations should be cited and properly credited. You can cite your sources in any format you are comfortable with. For submissions in other media, i.e., videos, music, etc, please provide a bibliography of all your sources.
  5. While we’d love to publish all your work, we are a newsletter, and cannot accept all the entries we receive. If your work is not featured in the newsletter we will consider featuring it on our social media.
  6. We prioritise submissions from people from historically marginalised groups, that includes (but not limited to; listed alphabetically),
    1. Adivasi Authors
    2. Authors of colour
    3. Authors who write in languages other than English
    4. Authors from the LGBTQIA+ community
    5. Bahujan authors
    6. Black authors
    7. Dalit authors
    8. Indigenous authors
    9. Persecuted religious minorities
    10. Refugees
    11. Stateless authors/ authors from a war-zone/ a military occupied area
    12. Tribal Authors
    13. Women
  7. We have a no-appropriation policy. Simply put, this means that any work you submit should not attempt to speak for or over marginalised communities that you are not a part of.
  8. While we at dob believe in autonomy to the writer and believe in celebrating freedom of expression, for editorial purposes strictly, the editors may make some technical suggestions to the work submitted. However, any changes will only be made and finalized by consulting the writer after having a discussion with them.
  9. Please include trigger warnings and content warnings as and when required.
  10. The writing should be accessible to a general readership (try to minimise the usage of academic jargon).

what we are looking for:

Book Reviews:

  1. The theme of our second issue is Disability.
  2. There are no restrictions on the genre of the book you are recommending-- poetry, fiction, non-fiction, everything is welcome.
  3. You can only submit one review at a time.
  4. Your review can be up to 750 words, and must be submitted through the Google form linked below.
  5. Please note that for this issue, we will prioritize reviews by Disabled reviewers of books by Disabled authors. We do not ask you to disclose any information or details with us, we just ask that you respect our guidelines to intentionally make this a space for Disabled writers.