We’re the editors of an upcoming Seal Press anthology entitled Homelands:
Women’s Journeys Toward Meanings of Home.  Please forward our call for
submissions to your networks.  We are trying to outreach to women writers
all over the world, because we want to include a diverse array of voices,
cultures, and experiences in this anthology.  Please see the call for
submissions below.  The deadline for submissions is April 1.  Unfortunately,
we aren’t able to translate work.  We are looking to publish personal essays
written in English.
Thanks,
Patricia Justine Tumang & Jenesha de Rivera

*CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*
For as long as people have left their homes and returned, there have been
stories written about journeying to the homeland. Yet, what does this
journey look like when a homeland no longer exists? When its borders are
policed by government-enforced laws and restrictions? When the memory of a
physical place is too far removed, or possibly forgotten?

Throughout history, the phrase “homeland” has conjured up evocative
metaphors and literal definitions of home. For those who have immigrated to
new lands or who have been exiled to foreign countries, it often stirs up
feelings of nostalgia, sentimentality, and longing. For some, “homeland” can
also evoke feelings of displacement and utter loss. Displacement caused by
war, natural disasters, occupation, genocide, militarism, political
struggles, and colonization affects our relationship to our homelands, and
oftentimes impacts whether we are able to physically return “home.” Homeland
invokes contradictory feelings and ideas: rootedness and departure,
stability and insecurity, reality and imagination. Whether national or
international, domestic or foreign, “at home” or “abroad,” the idea of
homeland has been branded on our psyches, especially with the establishment
of the United States Department of Homeland Security after 9/11. In the
United States and the rest of the world, the shifting borders of “homeland”
have become blurred, and new meanings of home are continually being
traversed upon, reconstructed, and re-imagined.

This anthology will explore women’s journeys to their “homeland(s)” geographic locations, an imagined community, part of one’s identity/ body,
or a memory. The editors are looking for personal essays written in
first-person that investigate the complexities of how women experience,
remember, or imagine journeys to their homelands. The essays will be told
from the perspective of a journey. Essays from emerging as well as
established writers will be accepted. We are not looking for submissions on
travel adventures abroad. Rather, we are looking for unique, well-crafted
personal essays from women of all races, classes, ethnicities, abilities,
sexualities, religions, and nationalities, who have been transformed by
their journeys homeland(s). We define woman as a person who has been, is, or will be a
“woman.”  We are interested in essays that challenge current and
conventional notions of homeland.  We welcome and consider new ideas other
than the topics suggested below.

Possible topics include:
  - The estranged homeland: the experience of living in exile
  - The grass is greener on the other side: stories of immigration
  - Back to my roots: stories by American-born women traveling back to
  the land of their ancestors
  - Pilgrimages: spiritual journeys to the homeland
  - In search of safety: stories of refugee journeys
  - The border crossed us: women’s lives in and across borderlands
  - Not another Starbucks: homelands affected by globalization
  - Fragments of home: journeys to homelands affected by war or natural
  disasters
  - Off the map: journeys to a homeland that no longer exists
  - This land is my land: struggles over land and sovereignty
  (including, but not limited to: Guam, Hawai’i, Native Americans, the
  Caribbean, indigenous people, etc.)
  - Ancestral amnesia: memories that are far removed from the homeland (
  i.e. African Americans who don’t have memories of Africa, and
2nd/3rdgeneration daughters of immigrants)
  - Fallen walls: journeys to homelands that were once divided by walls
  (i.e. Germany, China) and how the destruction of these walls changed
  the notion of homeland and community
  - Divided lands: journeys to homelands that are currently divided
  territories (i.e. North and South Korea)
  - Making a living in a foreign land: stories of women migrating to
  other countries for work
  - Coming home, coming out: queer women’s experiences in their
  homelands
  - Stepping outside the gender box: transgender and gender variant
  women’s journeys

* **Editors: *Patricia Justine Tumang and Jenesha de Rivera are Filipina
American writers, activists, and performers who live in Oakland, CA. Their
essays are in the Seal Press anthology *Waking Up American: Growing Up
Biculturally* and Patricia’s work has appeared in *Colonize This! Young
Women of Color on Today’s Feminism*, and *Hyphen Magazine*, a magazine
dedicated to Asian American issues and pop culture.

*Publisher*: Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, publishes
groundbreaking books by and for women in a variety of topics. For more
information, please visit http://www.sealpress.com.

*Deadline:* April 1, 2006

*Length:* 3,000­- 6,000 words

*Format:* Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include
your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio on the last page.
No simultaneous submissions. Previously published essays will be considered.
Essays will not be returned.

*Submitting:* Electronic submissions are preferred.  Send essay
electronically as a Word or Rich Text Format file (with .doc or .rtf
extension) to Jenesha de Rivera and Patricia Tumang at
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Put “Homeland Anthology” in the subject line.
If email is not possible, mail the essay to Jenesha de Rivera and Patricia
Tumang at: Seal Press, c/o Brooke Warner, 1400 65th Street, Suite 250,
Emeryville, CA 94608.  Please direct any inquiries to
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

*Payment:* $50-$100 plus two books

*Reply:* Please allow until September 1 for a response. If you haven’t
received a response by then, please assume your essay has not been selected.
It is not possible to reply to every submission personally.

—
_______________________________
Patricia Tumang & Jenesha de Rivera
Editors