Submissions are open for Opus II, Issue II of Half Mystic Journal until April 28, 2025.
Our twelfth issue celebrates the theme of sevdah. We’re looking for violin solos, velvet on bare skin, half lights, broken odes, empty airport terminals, redamancy, zinnias at the edge of wilting, damask curtains, clipped swans’ wings, inosculation, heroic crowns, the memory of a late-night lake with a long-gone lover, when the sky and water turned the same colour and met at the edge of the world.
Sevdah is a genre of Turkish and Bosnian folk music evoking sorrowful love and ecstatic, amorous yearning—from the Arabic “sawda,” meaning “black bile,” or a melancholy state of longing. In Issue II of our second opus, desire is holy and heavy as the still before the train comes. Moor us in the unquenchable. We want a begging to believe in.
Half Mystic Journal publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, translations, and hybrid work. We ask that each piece pertains to music and the sevdah theme.
Submit up to five pieces of up to 3000 words each. We don't accept previously-published writing, but we do accept and encourage simultaneous submissions.
In your cover letter, include a brief biographical note and the genre(s) of your submission. For translations, enclose the full text of the original piece and a statement declaring that you have the author’s permission to publish the translation, or that the original text is in the public domain. Translations must be to or from English.
We recommend that you read Half Mystic Journal’s past issues to familiarise yourself with our goals, aesthetics, and style. Thank you for honouring us with your work. We don't take that privilege for granted.
You can expect to hear from us within four weeks. If it's been five weeks and you haven't received a response, please send us a note to enquire!
Half Mystic Press publishes poetry, essay, and short story collections; memoirs; novellas and full-length novels; and hybrid work. We do not publish lyrics without music or critical work.
Please note that we do publish books that are not overtly music-themed. When we ask for music, we mean rhythm, we mean story, we mean luminescence and chaos, pulsing loneliness, ordinary madness, thunder on loop, violent quietude, stuttering wonder. We mean prayer and outrage, cataclysm and resurrection. We mean truth: the heartbeat of humanity in 4/4 time, books that force our eyes open, that insist on believing in something bigger than static. Send us your symphony. We won’t flinch.
Your manuscript must be at least 60 pages and complete. At least three-quarters of the book should be previously unpublished in any form. We welcome simultaneous submissions, and submissions from both agented and independent writers. We pay competitive royalties.
In your cover letter, include a biographical note, the genre of your submission, a brief description of what music means to you, and a note on where you found Half Mystic Press. For poetry, essay, and short story collections, please send the full manuscript; for all other genres, please send the first half of the manuscript. We read all submissions anonymously, so don’t include identifying information in the manuscript file.
We recommend that you read past books from Half Mystic Press to familiarise yourself with our goals, aesthetics, and style. Thank you for honouring us with your work. We don't take that privilege for granted.
You can expect to hear back from us within eight months. If it's been nine months and you haven't received a response, please send us a note to enquire!
We are currently open to interview requests from musicians and bands. Interviews are published on our blog, sent to our mailing list, and promoted on our social media.
We interview musicians working in all genres, all languages, and all countries. We ask that interviewees have at least one LP or at least two EPs available for sale on Bandcamp and/or music streaming services. To request an interview, send a cover letter (including a biographical note, the genre in which you primarily work, descriptions of and links to your most recent releases, and a note on where you found Half Mystic), links to your social media and website, and—if applicable—a press kit. We do not write music reviews, and we do not host album premieres.
We highly recommend that you read past interviews on the Half Mystic blog to familiarise yourself with our goals, aesthetics, and style. Thank you for honouring us with your work. We don't take that privilege for granted.
You can expect to hear back from us within two weeks. If it's been three weeks and you haven't received a response, please do send us a note to enquire!
In our celebration of music in all its forms, Half Mystic Journal is proud to spotlight one visual artist or collective per issue, known as our Featured Artist. We release an interview with the artist on our blog and in our journal, publish 13 to 15 of their pieces in the featured issue, and showcase their work in perpetuity on our website. The suite of published pieces is typically unified by style and form, and is always inspired by the issue's theme, the poetry and prose in the issue, and the artist's relationship with music as a whole.
To apply to illustrate our next issue, please send a cover letter (including a biographical note, an artist statement, a note on where you found Half Mystic, and a brief description of what music means to you) and a portfolio of five to ten art pieces in any medium. Colour and black-and-white works are both accepted, and your portfolio need not be music-centred.
We recommend that you read Half Mystic Journal’s past issues to familiarise yourself with our goals, aesthetics, and style. Thank you for honouring us with your work. We don't take that privilege for granted.
You can expect to hear from us within two weeks. If it's been three weeks and you haven't received a response, please send us a note to enquire!