Introducing the Wolfdog Southern African Journal

It’s time to introduce the Wolfdog Southern African Journal. We will be commencing with submissions over the next few months to see some of the great stuff that has come from the writers of Southern Africa. Read on if you wish to support or contribute to this new project.

What Is the Wolfdog Southern African Journal?

The Wolfdog Southern African Journal is the first literary journal by Wolfdog Publishing. This literary journal is a South African journal that publishes anything different, strange, experimental, et cetera. There are no restrictions on word count, although please don’t send any novel-length texts to us! Give us the unusual and the different. Show the world the new and innovative ideas that come from Southern African writers.

We don’t want standard stories that tell a standard narrative in a standard form. We want texts, of any genre or description (including prose, drama, poetry, essays, anything), and we want them to play around in any way they can. Ordinary form with a strange narrative? Ordinary narrative with an experimental form? A prose story told in rhyme? Or simply a story from a perspective that is hardly ever shown. Send it all!

The purpose of the Wolfdog Southern African Journal is to do something a bit different. As a result, the journal may also have to somewhat adapt for each issue. This will be determined in the coming months.

Who Can Submit to the Wolfdog Southern African Journal?

As the Wolfdog Southern African Journal is a South African journal, we want writers from Southern Africa and the Southern African diaspora. If you are from Southern Africa but left at any point, you are still eligible to submit. If your family is originally from Southern Africa, but you have never been there yourself, you are still eligible. Basically, you need to have some kind of connection to Southern Africa.

However, that does not mean that submissions need to be focused on any kind of Southern African perspective (although they too are more than welcome), but we do want our writers to be from Southern Africa in some or another sense. There are more than enough American literary journals, after all. So, if you’re connected to Southern Africa, we will welcome you regardless of what you want to write about.

How Can You Submit to the Wolfdog Southern African Journal?

There is a dedicated page for the journal on the Wolfdog Publishing website, but let’s give you all the information here too! If you are eligible and wish to submit, please send an email to wolfdogpublishing@gmail.com with your chosen piece.

In your email, please specify your preferred name, pronouns, your connection to Southern Africa, a confirmation that you understand the experimental nature of the journal, and a statement that you have written this yourself (no plagiarism/AI) in a brief cover letter. But please do not give a summary of the text you have attached. We want to read it without any expectations of any kind. Let us see what you’ve got!

Please use the Gmail address for submissions, but if you have any non-submission-related queries, shoot us an email at admin@wolfdogpublishing.com. You can also follow us and/or message us on Twitter or Instagram (but do not submit anything via social media).

When Will the First Issue of the Wolfdog Southern African Journal Be Released?

There is no definitive date as of yet for the publication of the first issue. The first step is to gauge how many Southern African writers have an interest in the journal. However, the plan is for the first issue to be released near the end of 2024. We will keep everyone updated on Twitter, and you can follow us there if you want to keep up to date.

Does the Wolfdog Southern African Journal Pay Its Writers?

Sadly, the project is currently volunteer work being run by a single person. They are also not particularly wealthy but can give away some of their time to the journal. If financial situations improve in the future, we may be able to offer something more concrete, but for now, we will only be able to promote and preserve your work. We also only ask for first publication rights, and that means you still hold the copyright to your work and can do as you like with it. We do ask that all works that are submitted be original works that have not been published elsewhere.

Which Languages Can Be Submitted to the Wolfdog Southern African Journal?

At the moment, we can sadly only facilitate English as a language for submissions. The reason for this is that the journal is currently being run entirely by one person, and they are English. Perhaps in the future, we might be able to bring on more readers who can expand the number of accepted languages. That would be the goal!

Where Can You Find the Wolfdog Southern African Journal?

The plan is for the Wolfdog Southern African Journal to be entirely free of charge for anyone who wants to read each issue. This means that the issues will be made available online for free, likely from the Wolfdog Publishing website as well as our Itch.io page. In the future, there may be plans to create print versions, but that will require payment of some description. That is a potential plan for the future, but it is not definitive.

How Can You Support the Wolfdog Southern African Journal?

As has already been stated, the Wolfdog Southern African Journal will be free of charge to anyone who wants to read the digital version of the journal, and that means that there is no need to buy anything. However, the journal’s operations are run by one person who is doing this on a volunteer basis at the moment. If you want to support their work here, you can contribute to the Ko-Fi page of L.C. Lupus (and for disclosure, that is also me, the person writing this. Yay!).

And that is the Wolfdog Southern African Journal! If you have an interest in submitting to the journal, please feel free to do so. If you would like to support it, you can follow us on Twitter to keep up to date with the journal. We look forward to finding some fantastic Southern African writers out there!