All My Relations Volume 4 is an art and lit, online and printed magazine, exploring the themes of disability and accessibility. This volume is open to disabled creatives only, in consideration of the theme. Own voices only, please.
We are not looking for graphic or traumatic stories or dark fictional pieces written for shock value. We do not require that you center your or your relations’ traumas. And we are not interested in the single story of harm and suffering.
We are looking for honest pieces reflecting on your feelings of disability and accessibility, pieces exploring the myriad of feelings that come from navigating disability in an ableist world or being in community with other disabled folks, pieces exploring how it feels not to have access and to have your access needs met, musings on alternate universes where accessibility is always considered, reflections on a utopian accessible future, etc. We are looking for pieces that honor your experience, honor your journey, imagine the absence of otherization, and/or aid in communal healing.
We are committed to editing with an equity lens, ensuring any edits are for clarity and not stylistic in nature. We are committed to never alter a writing style, the intention of a piece, or change the voice in any way. If we ever fail or come up short in this attempt, please do let us know.
We are free to submit to and free to read. We will accept one written piece or piece of artwork per person and hope to respond within one month.
Submissions are open and will close when we have reached 100 pages of content or January 1, whichever comes first. To submit, fill out our submission form (one piece per entry in the form). Be sure to read all of our guidelines below before submitting.
Because our issues do often deal with mature topics, our publication is open to creatives aged 16+ only.
Volume 1 explored the theme of familial (blood, adopted, affirming, community, or other “family”) loss or ancestry. Read the complete volume here.
We’re the masthead, the team, the folks reviewing your work:
Chris will edit fiction for this volume.
Chris Talbot-Heindl (they/them) is a neurodivergent, trans nonbinary, queer, triracial artist and writer who has been writing mostly creative nonfiction and creating educomics for nearly 20 years although their favorite media to consume is fiction.
They are the co-creator and editor of The B’K, the editor of the Community-Centric Fundraising Hub, and art editor for The Gamut Mag.
They are currently trying to get their debut non-fiction chapbook, Why must the white cis nonprofit workers angry react to all my posts? A compilation of essays, posts, and thoughts by a queer, trans, mixed-race professional surviving predominantly white cisgender heterosexual institutions published.
nat will edit art and non-fiction for this volume.
nat raum (b. 1996) is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster from Baltimore, MD. They’re a current MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore and also hold a BFA in photography and book arts. nat is also the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press and managing editor of Welter Journal, as well as a review writer for the winnow magazine. They are the author of preparatory school for the end of the world (self-pub, 2021), you stupid slut (Dream Boy Book Club, 2022), and specter dust (Bullshit Lit, 2022). Past and upcoming publishers of their writing include Olney Magazine, perhappened, CLOVES, and trampset. Find them online: natraum.com/links.
Rachael will edit poetry for this volume.
Rachael Crosbie (they/them) is a queer, disabled, and neurodivergent poet from Pennsylvania. They are the co-editor-in-chief of the winnow, poetry editor of Variant Literature, and poetry editor of Dollar Store Magazine. They have edited various anthologies/other publications, such as Growing Pains (ELJ Editions, Ltd.), The Midnight Mass Anthology with Charlie D’Aniello, High Voltage Anthology with Charlie D’Aniello and Arden Hunter, and others. Rachael is the author of six poetry chapbooks, such as Trick Mirror or Your Computer Screen (fifth wheel press, 2022) and Peanut [the cat] auditions as Courage […from Courage the Cowardly Dog (self-published, 2022).
We expect submissions to be on the themes of disability or accessibility and submitted by disabled creatives only. We don’t define disability, but if you readily identify as disabled, this publication is for you.
We require written submissions to be under 5,000 words for fiction and nonfiction and under 5 pages for poetry, submitted in a Word Document or text file. PDFs will not be considered and will be rejected outright. Submissions must be in English as, unfortunately, that is the only language we can read. Do feel free to add words in a language other than English and we will consult Google or other resources, but the submission must be primarily in English.
We require that image submissions be sent at least 300 dpi and at least 3 inches by 3 inches. To be considered for cover art, the image must be at least either 11.25 inches tall or 8.65 inches wide. We do not accept AI-generated work as it doesn’t fit in our definition of own voices. By submitting your work, you confirm that the artwork is yours and yours alone, does not make use of images that are not your own (or if you do use images that are not your own, they are royalty-free and do not constitute the bulk of the submission), and was not AI-generated.
We will accept simultaneous submissions. Please let us know if it is a simultaneous submission (in the “Anything you want our editors to know about your piece” section of the form) and let us know as soon as you do if it has been accepted elsewhere.
Our form requires the following information: your name as you’d like it to appear, the name of the piece as you’d like it to appear, trigger warnings if necessary, and answers to our identity questions.
We aim to have a diverse publication from a diverse set of voices. In order to make sure we do that, we need to know who you are. We will not deny someone based on identity unless it is deemed that the submission becomes inappropriate or appropriation due to the submitter’s identity. Things that we would consider inappropriate or appropriation would include writing about what it’s like to be part of a historically marginalized community you do not belong to. We encourage people outside of the community to include people from historically marginalized communities, but we won’t publish pieces that explain what it’s like to be part of those communities. We value inclusivity and believe the only way to do it right is with #OwnVoices.
We don’t want to read something that might be triggering without being in the right head space. We would hate to deny something because it caught us off guard at a bad time. If appropriate, please include a trigger warning. Before you submit, make sure that it will not violate our submission guidelines (see the full list below).
Recently, there’s been a few people in the lit community who have been exposed as predators and abusers. We want our publication to be a safe space:
If you are a survivor and we have published the work of someone who has harmed you, please let us know who and what would feel like a just response to you. We’ve created a report form (with suggested actions) if you do not feel comfortable reaching out via email.
Rights, publication, copies, and payment information:
You retain the rights to your pieces after publication in our zine. We encourage you to submit your piece to other publications after it has appeared in ours (if their submissions allow it), we just ask that you acknowledge that it was previously published in ours first. We fully accept pieces that have been published elsewhere (if their submissions allow it) and will be happy to acknowledge that it was published elsewhere first. We want to get your creations in front of as many people as possible and are happy to do it!
Once the piece has been published, it is done. If we made a typo, we’d be happy to fix it, but we will not pull the piece or make any large edits. You have until the piece goes to print to make any changes to the piece. If there are large changes that change the tone, feeling, or reading of the piece, it will have to go back to our readers and may not be accepted with the changes.
Submitter copies. We can’t afford to send submitter copies. We beta tested it, and would have lost our shirts if it hadn’t been for a last-minute angel investor. We will send a PDF of the issue to any submitter who wants one so they can get it printed and we offer copies to our submitters at cost (estimated around $6-8 per issue, depending largely on the number of color pages and how many copies).
Who and how we pay. We pay a modest amount ($10) for previously unpublished works through PayPal or Venmo.
Things that will be rejected outright and could get you temporarily or permanently banned from All My Relations and The B’K:
If your submission violates any of the guidelines below, you will be informed and temporarily banned from submitting to any Talbot-Heindl publication for one month’s time. A rejection for violating a guideline is not the start of an argument. You have submitted to our publication, so follow our rules.
If it is a flagrant violation or you argue with us or respond aggressively to a rejection for any reason, you will be permanently banned.
Likewise, even if your submissions to us are not problematic, but we are informed of problematic behavior outside of our publication against people from marginalized communities and can verify it,you will not be welcome to our publication and we reserve the right to remove your work from past issues.
Here is our list of violations:
The piece implicates you in a crime.
The piece is partially or fully plagiarized.
The piece is AI-generated or the majority/focus of the piece makes use of images that were not created by you.
The piece uses fridging of marginalized people or children (the trope where a marginalized person is injured, killed, or demoralized in some way to move a privileged person’s story or character development forward).
The piece reduces people from marginalized genders or races to body parts, objects, or in another way dehumanizes them.
The piece’s main focus is sexual attraction or exploitation.
The piece is erotica or is sexually explicit.
The piece sexualizes a child. This means anyone under 18 years old, no matter what.
The piece glorifies or sexualizes violence against marginalized genders.
The piece mentions or implies molestation, sexual assault, or r*pe. There is NO wiggle room on this. Our fiction editor is a survivor and will not subject themself to the pain of reading this. Any violation of this guideline will result in an instant permanent ban from our publication. The trauma is too great and therapy is too expensive to deal with this.
The piece includes content or slurs that could be considered racist, xenophobic, queerphobic, transphobic, sexist, misogynistic, fetishist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, ableist, audistic, or in any other way offensive to a protected class or minority. Your piece will be rejected unless it is made clear within the piece or in an artist statement at the end that the behavior/language is unacceptable, proper content warnings are provided, and the word is in some way censored in the piece (vowels replaced with * as an example we’ve accepted). While I understand that some people are reclaiming words that have been used to disparage people that share an identity, not all our readers from that identity will be reclaiming that word and we need to think of their well-being as well.
