Featured Image: Kaitlyn Brockley
Welcome all! Starting university or returning can be a daunting time, full of pressures to do everything at once, expectations to be the ‘ideal’ student or flatmate, the general stress of figuring yourself out. So, at aAh! Magazine we have chosen ‘Authenticity’ as our creative writing theme of the month, allowing you some creative licence to run wild on the page.
Did you feel different from everyone at a party? Have a bad interview? Really felt you’d experienced a genuine moment in all its glittery goodness? Maybe you’re thinking of writing a prose poem about identity, or a coming-of-age short story. Or perhaps you’d like to write a creative response to a show or exhibition you went to that really did (or didn’t) speak to you? We welcome all forms of creative writing, such as lyric essay, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, visual poetry, be experimental, blend styles and genres.
Creative Writing Guidelines
We are accepting any form of creative writing responding to the theme of AUTHENTICITY. Be inventive! Submissions should be a maximum of 1500 words, and we allow a maximum of three pieces of poetry, or one piece of creative fiction/nonfiction per submission.
Featured Artists Guidelines
We’re spotlighting visual artists – fine artists, illustrators, photographers, graphic designers, filmmakers. Submit up to ten images (or one film) of work which responds to the theme AUTHENTICITY.
We want to see a diverse array of interpretations, and artists are invited to submit work in a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, photography, textile, mixed-media, digital, performance and film.
Submit your visual art in a digital format in the highest possible resolution (not below 300 dpi).
Visual Guidelines
Featured Artists’ work may also be published alongside creative prose, poetry and other artwork exploring the theme AUTHENTICITY. We aim to curate a thought provoking, critical and creative selection of writing and artwork.
To submit, email your entry to aAh.Editor@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Authenticity Creative Submission’. Deadline: 20th January, 2025.
Featured image and gallery: Hoang Phan Notebooks were carried from one workshop to another. Writers from different generations sat around tables, sharing manuscripts and listening to each other. Outdoors, small groups strolled along Oxford Road, pausing before buildings steeped in literary history. This was the scene during the Manchester Writing School Summer Festival 2026, held…
Featured image: Katja Ogrin With many sore heads and limbs this morning after the most hardcore day of the festival taking place yesterday, many are recovering from the moshing and pit brutality of the previous day’s antics. As the tradition of a morning movie in the Serpents Lair prevails, the crowd sprawls out onto the plush,…
Featured image: Abbi Draper After an electrifying start to the weekend, with temperatures slowly climbing, many lather themselves in suncream, shed their band shirts and rise from their tents to trek towards the arena. Saturday has big things incoming for the humans of Bloodstock 2026. Some pace themselves for the day and hide from the early…
Featured image: Abbi Draper After a memorable Thursday opener, Bloodstock 2026 opens its gates once again onto the Hallowed Grounds of Catton Park, kicking off day two of its 25th-anniversary celebration of metal. As the sun rises on Catton Park, festivalgoers emerge from their tents to prepare for another day of mayhem. The morning brings…
Leave a reply