Creative

Creative writing: Call for Submissions – Nature

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Featured Image: “365::115 – write” by .reid.

Letter from our Creative Editors: We’re open for submissions!

Dear Creators,

The dreary days of winter are lifting! As April shuffles in, we can be sure that spring is on its way. The days are growing longer, the daffodils are blooming, and the sun is beginning to show its face again. As April sees the celebration of Earth day and Easter and ushers in the incoming spring, it’s impossible not to be reminded of rebirth, renewal and possibility.

This month, we would like to invite you to send us your best creative work on the theme of Nature. What does nature mean to you? Do you find yourself drawn to the minuscule and varied details of the natural world? The things that are often overlooked and ignored. Or do you prefer the sweeping landscapes, the wide picturesque views, the places that make us feel small? Maybe you prefer to ruminate on our place in the world, our connection to it, our interaction with it.

You might look to Mary Oliver’s poetry for inspiration:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver

Or you may find Alice Oswald’s blending of the natural and the manmade more to your taste:

almost everything here has cold hands

I notice the wind wears surgical gloves

I notice the keen pale colours of the rain

like a surgeon’s assistant

‘Cold Streak’ by Alice Oswald

However you choose to study the world around you, put it to paper. What do you notice out there? How does it make you feel?

We are accepting works of prose, poetry, flash fiction and art on the theme of nature. All submissions should be a maximum of 1,500 words. To send us your submission, please email a word document or PDF to aAh.Editor@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Creative Submission’. 

The closing date for submissions is 19th April.

Keep on creating,

Ryann Overbay on behalf of

The Creative Editors, aAh! Magazine. 

Check out previous creative works on the aAh! Magazine Creative Section website.

About the author / 

Ryann Overbay

Ryann has recently moved to Manchester from Japan, where she lived for five years teaching English literature and working as a travel writer for Voyapon Magazine. She is currently studying her MA in creative writing and is excited to work with aAh! Magazine as a creative editor.

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