Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal Submissions

***Submissions are now closed***

Submissions Call for July 2025 Edition of Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal

Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality would like to invite submissions to the July 2025 edition of Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal, which goes out on Thursday, 24 July. Tintreach publishes creative work from across the artistic spectrum. Submissions are accepted until we reach capacity, or until midnight on Sunday, 8 June 2025 – whichever comes first. The theme for this edition is Voices of Peace. The theme is flexible; submissions can relate to peace – or its antithesis, war – be they in the psychological, familial, social, or political realm. The one requirement we have is that submissions do not in any way actively promote or encourage violence or war.

The Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival is delighted to partner with Tintreach: The Smashing Times Arts and Literary Journal on the current submissions call to identify artists for its upcoming issue. The four artists selected for the July edition of Tintreach will become Voices of Peace Artists at the Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival 2025. Artists will have some of their work featured in the 10-day festival, will receive an invitation to the festival launch event on 10 October, and will be interviewed about their work on the Smashing Times Arts and Human Rights Radio Show on Dublin South FM. Artists will receive a fee, details of which are in the full submission guidelines below.

Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival 2025

Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality, Front Line Defenders, and a range of partners present the seventh annual, international Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival from 10–19 October 2025. The festival features exciting and innovative events that promote equality, human rights, and diversity throughout the country. The aim of the festival is to showcase and highlight the extraordinary work of human rights defenders in Ireland and around the world, past and present, and the role of the arts and artists in promoting human rights today.

The artistic curator for the festival is Mary Moynihan, Artistic Director, Smashing Times; and the human rights curator is Laura O’Leary, International Events and Promotions Coordinator, Front Line Defenders. The festival is a hybrid programme delivered over 10 days, hosting an exciting blend of events happening in person and online, featuring Irish and international artists and guest speakers, reaching audiences locally, nationally, and internationally.

The festival promotes human rights and justice for all, and the vision of a world where all people are treated equally, with dignity, and respect – linking the arts to civil society, active citizenship, and politics, aiming to celebrate and unite community connections, artists, human rights organisations, and human rights defenders. The festival showcases world-class and diverse acts, artists, and speakers, including up-and-coming performers. It brings arts and human rights together through interdisciplinary events which include workshops, theatre performances, musical performances, visual arts, exhibitions, film screenings, panel discussions, poetry and literature events, historical memory performances, live art, and more.

Artist Submissions

Artist submissions can be in any genre or form. International submissions are welcome. A few notes:

Shorter-Form Pieces

  • Poems can be any length.
  • Articles should be no longer than 1,500 words.
  • A written excerpt from a play or screenplay should not exceed 1,500 words.
  • If sending a photograph, or an image of a painting, sculpture, or architectural work, please ensure that the images are of a high quality, and provide the work’s label: material(s) used, dimensions, and year. Please include a few lines contextualising your piece and explaining how it relates to the theme. Lastly, please remember to include the title of the piece in the file names themselves.
  • Videos, or video excerpts, of plays, should not run longer than 20 minutes. Please ensure that the video is of a high audiovisual calibre.
  • If submitting a song, piece of music, short film, video artwork, feature-film excerpt, or dance piece, please ensure it doesn’t exceed 20 minutes. Likewise, please make sure that they are of a high audiovisual calibre.

Longer-Form Pieces

  • Prose submissions – a short story, non-fiction essay, or novel extract – should be no longer than 3,000 words.

Submissions Per Person

  • We publish four artists per edition. Ideally, we will publish more than one piece by each artist, unless their pieces are longer form (short story, non-fiction essay, or novel extract). The purpose of this is to offer artists, especially emerging artists, more exposure than a journal publication would normally offer.
  • When it comes to shorter-form pieces (everything except for short stories, non-fiction essays, or novel extracts), we strive to publish two works by each artist, while the Featured Artist will have 3–4 pieces included. Therefore, unless you are submitting a longer-form piece, we ask that you submit a minimum of two works and a maximum of three. These can be in two or three different artforms if you wish. (For example, one poem and two paintings, or one poem, one painting, and one song).
  • You may only submit one longer-form piece (short story, non-fiction essay, or novel extract). However, you may submit one shorter-form piece alongside this, if you wish. This makes a maximum of two total submissions if you are submitting one longer-form piece. (For example, one short story and one painting, or one novel extract and one poem.)

General Guidelines

  • Submissions may have appeared elsewhere before, though new work is especially welcome. (If a submission has appeared elsewhere, please state this and include the publication details.)
  • Submissions can be made in English, Irish, or in translation. For Irish language submissions, accompanying English language translations are welcome, though this is in no way compulsory. For translations of the work of another author, all relevant permissions must be obtained beforehand. We may also look to publish the original alongside the translation.
  • There is no entry fee.
  • Submissions are accepted until we reach capacity, or midnight on Sunday, 8 June 2025 – whichever comes first. Please submit to smashingsubmissions(at)gmail.com. Subject lines should read: ‘Tintreach Submission, July 2025’. Please include a max two-line biography to accompany your piece, written in third person and making reference to your previous publications/exhibitions/appearances (if applicable); any social media/website links you would like to be included in case of publication; a headshot or photograph; whether you would like to be signed up to receive Tintreach (in addition to our monthly newsletter), so that, if selected, you receive the edition in which your work appears; and how exactly you heard of this submission opportunity. In order to ensure your submission’s eligibility, please make sure that you have included everything we have requested.
  • Our preference for written pieces is that they be sent in a Word document. Please do not send them in a PDF.
  • If we accept a written piece, the editor will contact you with at least one round of suggested edits, so please monitor your email closely.
  • Contributors to Tintreach will receive a fee. The Featured Artist will receive €50 and the three other artists €25 each.
  • The four artists selected for the July edition of Tintreach will become Voices of Peace Artists at the Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival 2025. Each artist will receive a fee of €200. This opportunity provides artists with the following:
  • Each artist published in the July 2025 edition of Tintreach will become a Voices of Peace Artist at the Irish Arts and Human Rights Festival 2025, which runs from 10–19 October 2025. Artists will be invited to display one or more artworks, or to present a showing of their work – readings, poetry, film installations, for example – in the Smashing Times Art Gallery, 30 Sandycove Road, Sandycove, Dublin, A96 V9P1. The fee paid to the artist covers either (a) a display of one or more artworks in an exhibition (artworks to be presented ready for hanging) or (b) a reading or showing of the work to a public event. A final decision on what artworks and talks to present rests with Smashing Times and may change dependent on programming requirements.
  • An Artist Interview with the Smashing Times Arts and Human Rights Radio Show in partnership with Dublin South FM. Smashing Times run a bi-weekly Arts and Human Rights Radio Show with Dublin South FM. The show explores all things arts, culture, and human rights. On the artist interview, we will chat about your work, how you became an artist, your creative process, what inspires you to create, and how your work as an artist reflects on themes of peace and human rights.
  • An invitation to the festival launch event on 10 October.
  • The edition goes out on Thursday, 24 July, 2025.
  • Tintreach reaches around 1,400 people, including a range of major organisations in the areas of arts and human rights, both in Ireland and across Europe. Previous contributors to the Tintreach section of our newsletter include poets Jessica Traynor and Fady Joudah, Senator Lynn Ruane, 2023 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Narges Mohammadi, rapper-singer Saint Levant, visual artist Erika Diettes, and many more.
  • Submissions are especially welcome from individuals who have been underrepresented historically, such as ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, members of the Traveller community, the LGBTQ+ community, and women.

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