Submissions Call for January 2025 Edition of Tintreach

Posted on by Ed Moynihan

Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality would like to invite submissions to the January 2025 edition of Tintreach.

From January 2025 onwards, we plan on splitting the Smashing Times Newsletter in two. On the one hand will be the monthly newsletter, including Spotsolas: Smashing Times in the Spotlight, Grants and Opportunities, 10 We Admire, and more. On the other hand will be Tintreach. Published quarterly online, Tintreach is our new arts and literary journal for creative work from across the artistic spectrum. It is a continuation of the Tintreach section of the monthly newsletter. (We welcome feedback on these changes; for more information on this, please scroll to the bottom of this page.)

The theme for the January 2025 edition is the same as that of the Tintreach section within the October 2024 newsletter: In Solidarity: An International Celebration of Arts and Human Rights (Part II). Submissions are accepted until we reach capacity, or until midnight on 30 November, 2024 – whichever comes first. (We will update this page, and our social media accounts, if capacity has been reached before the deadline.)

According to the United Nations, human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, free of discrimination.

The arts are a powerful vessel through which the nature and importance of human rights can be explored. Most works of art have at their core a strain of humanitarianism. They attempt to make the world a better place, improving human welfare through cultural, spiritual, intellectual, or emotional enrichment. Many artists are human rights activists at some level. Art affirms life, and an affirmation of life is also an affirmation of human rights.

Artist Submissions

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

  • If submitting poetry, please send a maximum of two poems (of any length).
  • If making a prose submission – a short story, non-fiction essay (personal or general), or novel extract – please send no more than one piece, of no longer than 3,000 words.
  • If submitting an article, please send one piece, of no longer than 1,500 words.
  • If submitting a written excerpt from a play or screenplay, please send no more than one piece, of no more than 1,500 words.
  • If sending a photograph, or an image of a painting, sculpture, or architectural work, please submit no more than two. 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 state the title of the piece.
  • In the case of videos, or video excerpts, of plays, please submit no more than two, with neither submission running longer than 20 minutes. Please ensure that the video is of a high audiovisual calibre.
  • If submitting a song, a short film, a video artwork, a feature-film excerpt, or a dance piece, please send no more than two, and ensure neither runs over 20 minutes. Likewise, please make sure that they are of a high audiovisual calibre.
  • If submitting in multiple artforms, please send no more than two artworks overall. For example, you may send one short story together with one article, or one painting and two poems.
  • Submissions may have appeared elsewhere before, though new work is especially welcome. (If a submission has appeared elsewhere before, please state this and include the publication details.)
  • Submissions can be made in English, Irish, or in translation. For Irish language submissions, our preference is that they be submitted alongside English language translations, 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.
  • Themes are always flexible; any subjective response is considered valid.
  • Submissions are accepted until we reach capacity, or midnight on 30 November, 2024 – whichever comes first. Please submit to smashingsubmissions(at)gmail.com. Subject lines should read: ‘Tintreach Submission, January 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 and/or our newsletter, which are both free of charge, (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.
  • If your work is accepted, it will appear not only in Tintreach but possibly on the Smashing Times website and across our social media channel (always with credit).
  • Not all submissions will be accepted, unfortunately.
  • The edition goes out on Thursday, 30 January, 2025.
  • Publication is unpaid, regrettably, as we are a small charity with limited resources. Tintreach reaches around 1,400 people, however, 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. Please let us know when submitting if you belong to any of these or suchlike minorities.

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We at Smashing Times would love to get some input from our readers before the aforementioned changes to our newsletter are made. What are your thoughts on the current format of the newsletter (most of which will remain the same, bar moving the Tintreach section from the monthly newsletter to the standalone journal)? What do you like and not like about it? What are your thoughts on the planned change? What could make it better? Any and all feedback and ideas, however critical, are very much welcome. Please email these to communications(at)smashingtimes.ie.