OPEN CALL – Ha!art Issue 57: UTOPIAS/ DYSTOPIAS

Let your imagination run wild!

Open call for prose, poetry, drama, articles, drawings, comic strips from HA!art.

Ha!art Issue 57: UTOPIAS/ DYSTOPIAS

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, George Orwell’s 1984 made its way to Amazon’s bestseller list and the demand for classic dystopian novels has increased dramatically.

And since the publication of those novels several decades ago, which viciously critique their times, their message seems to have been prophetic, having particular resonance today. However, the present reality in Poland and Central Europe even seems to surpass, at times, the wackiest visions known to us from film or literature. Since utopias, anti-utopias and dystopias have burst out of literary theory handbooks, not to mention literary works themselves, and permeated our reality, what we’re proposing is a little experiment. Imagine an even stranger scenario: say Poland and the world spin a reality so insane that it makes our current problems seem like child’s play. Or, on the contrary, imagine that the ridiculed and abandoned dreams of utopia come true before our very eyes. Dress the fears, desires and traumas of today in a futuristic suit, and try to trace the consequences of our present dreams and errors.

We are open to a variety of genres – prose, poetry, drama, articles and pieces of journalism, as well as drawings, comic strips and graphic pieces. As always, we will be grateful for an accessible form and limited number of footnotes. Translations of works into Polish are also welcome. Although we are mainly interested in our own backyard, i.e. Central and Eastern Europe, we will accept anything which breaks out of the mainstream and is not another variation on already well-known figures and works. We are waiting for your texts and translations until May 20, 2017. Send your works to poczta.literacka@ha.art.pl with “UTOPIA” in the title of the e-mail.

P.S. We reserve the right to contact only chosen authors.