Submissions & Reviewing

What are we looking for?

The Markaz Review aka TMR seeks essays, fea­ture arti­cles and reviews of books, film, music, the­atre and art, as well as profiles/interviews of artists, film­mak­ers, musi­cians and writ­ers (1,000–3,000 words). We’re inter­est­ed in cov­er­ing a world­wide array of visu­al, lit­er­ary and per­form­ing arts events, as well as cur­rent affairs. We also pub­lish opin­ion columns (750–1,500 words). Our style is seri­ous with­out being aca­d­e­m­ic. Our writ­ers care and are even pas­sion­ate on the sub­jects they cover.

Reviewing

Book pub­li­cists, authors and pub­lish­ers should address a press release and an elec­tron­ic ARC of your book to our Book Edi­tor, who han­dles assign­ments: Rana Asfour, rana-at-themarkaz.org. To poten­tial­ly have your film, art exhi­bi­tion or oth­er event reviewed, drop us a line at info-at-themarkaz.org and your query will be for­ward­ed to the appro­pri­ate editor.

Review­ers: While we are very open to com­par­a­tive review essays (typ­i­cal­ly 1,000–3,000 words), we dis­cour­age writ­ers from pitch­ing reviews in which they would be writ­ing about books or films by friends. A lit­tle objec­tiv­i­ty goes a long way, and we pre­fer crit­i­cal writ­ing that holds work to high standards.

 

What do we care about?

TMR is an inter­na­tion­al plat­form for cre­ative inquiry, crit­i­cism, per­for­mance and dia­logue that explores the arts, human­i­ties and cur­rent affairs. Rec­og­niz­ing that we live in a world frag­ment­ed by racism, gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion, set­tler-colo­nial­ism, class and caste sys­tems, xeno­pho­bia and ori­en­tal­ism, we raise our voic­es for social jus­tice and human rights.

When does TMR publish?

Writ­ten or audio­vi­su­al con­tri­bu­tions appear either in TMR Week­ly, pub­lish­ing every Mon­day, or in our month­ly online mag­a­zine, a themed issue every 15th of the month. Sub­mis­sions range from 750 to 3,000 words, but please query with a one- or two-para­graph pitch, to editor-at-themarkaz.org.

FILES

All work must be turned in as either a Word file or a Google doc using the Word for­mat­ting. Track changes (not email exchanges) remain the gold stan­dard with respect to edit­ing, cor­rec­tions and final drafts. No exceptions. 

Please do not send sto­ries or cor­rec­tions in the body of your email. After pub­li­ca­tion, minor cor­rec­tions are accept­able via email.

If you are send­ing images, upload all of them to one Google dri­ve fold­er and share the link to that fold­er with TMR. Upload a Word doc with cap­tions for your images into that same fold­er. Please do not send mul­ti­ple images with mul­ti­ple emails. 

TMR WEEKLY

All op-eds, columns or reviews must be turned in not less than one week pri­or to the agreed-upon pub­li­ca­tion date. We pub­lish every Mon­day, thus your work must be turned in no lat­er than the pre­vi­ous Monday. 

TMR MONTHLY

Queries will be accept­ed up to the 20th of the month pre­ced­ing the month of pub­li­ca­tion (always the 15th of each month).

The final pol­ished draft of approved sto­ries will be accept­ed up to the 5th of the month of pub­li­ca­tion, unless trans­la­tion is required, in which case you must add an addi­tion­al week to 10 days ahead of the dead­line on the 5th of the month. Any sto­ries turned in after the 5th of the month of pub­li­ca­tion will be con­sid­ered late and may not make it into pub­li­ca­tion. To avoid con­fu­sion, please turn in your work ear­ly or on time.

Edit­ing, lay­out, design and pub­li­ca­tion prep for each month­ly issue must be com­plet­ed no lat­er than the 10th of the month. This allows TMR time to pre­pare PR and mar­ket­ing of the issue, prep­ping social media posts and oth­er outreach.

 

 

Call for Submissions: MADNESS • July 2022 

 

We are liv­ing in unhinged times in which men­tal ill­ness is on the rise, in part due to the soli­tude and the stress of Covid-19, but also because of war and oth­er glob­al crises. With par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on the Mid­dle East, the Maghreb and dias­po­ra, The Markaz Review will pub­lish an issue devot­ed to madness—clinical, lit­er­ary, exis­ten­tial, apocalyptic—on July 15, 2022. 

 

Art, pho­tog­ra­phy, film, music, fic­tion, essays and reviews are wel­come. Every­thing is on the table for the MADNESS issue, includ­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal stress among refugees/immigrants/Arabs/Muslims/people of col­or, explor­ing the social stig­ma of men­tal ill­ness, the frag­ile con­di­tion of exile, the rich his­to­ry of per­cep­tions and approach­es to men­tal ill­ness in the region, the ele­vat­ed fig­ure of the mad poet (prophet, exile, lover); con­cepts of cre­ativ­i­ty and mad­ness, how mad­ness his­tor­i­cal­ly devel­ops in art and soci­ety — from Maj­noun Laila, to mys­ti­cism, the fig­ure of the Dar­weesh or the social out­cast, and beyond. 

 

Query by June 20th, dead­line for sub­mis­sion of mate­ri­als, July 5th to editor@themarkaz.org.

 

 

Call for Submissions: BERLIN • September 2022 

 

In recent years, with the flow of refugees from West Asia and Africa stream­ing toward Europe, many have strug­gled to find accep­tance and asy­lum in the UK, Ger­many, and sev­er­al Nordic coun­tries, but one city stands out as hav­ing become a pre­ferred des­ti­na­tion among Arab and oth­er Mid­dle East­ern immi­grants, and that is BERLIN. On August 15, 2022, The Markaz Review will pub­lish an issue devot­ed to Berlin from the view­point of its SWANA refugees, in par­tic­u­lar artists and writ­ers, activists and edu­ca­tors from Afghanistan, Iran, Syr­ia, Egypt, Alge­ria, Pales­tine, Israel and oth­er coun­tries south and west of the Mediter­ranean. Is Berlin the “new Dam­as­cus” or “new Cairo” as some have called it? This pop­u­la­tion had the prece­dent of a large Turk­ish migra­tion; as a result, are Ger­mans in Berlin more recep­tive to and accept­ing of Mus­lims immi­grants? Sto­ries of adap­ta­tion and asy­lum, in the form of first-per­son essays, short fic­tion, pho­tog­ra­phy, film, art and music are welcome. 

 

Please query editor@themarkaz.org by August 15, 2022 or sub­mit your com­plet­ed work. Final copy dead­line is Sep­tem­ber 1, 2022.

 

What’s been our track record?

Over the years, Lev­an­tine Cul­tur­al Center/Markaz flag­ship pro­grams have engaged com­mu­ni­ties to over­come ani­mos­i­ty and racism to learn about one anoth­er. They include Arabs, Blacks and Jews: The Art of Resis­tance (2005–2010); Free­dom The­atre West (2011–2014); Gaza Surf Relief (2007–2015); New Voic­es in Mid­dle East­ern Cin­e­ma (2010–2015); and the Sul­tans of Satire (2005–2017). Mean­while our Inside-Out­side Gallery (2009–2016) pre­sent­ed many group and solo art exhibits fea­tur­ing fine artists from across the Mid­dle East/North Africa and the Amer­i­can diaspora.

Contributor Honoraria

The Markaz Review (TMR) is a non-prof­it pub­li­ca­tion. TMR offers con­trib­u­tors a mod­est honorarium.

What else would you like to know?

The Markaz Review presents online art gal­leries as well as live per­for­mances, short films, dis­cus­sion groups and presentations/Q & As with world experts. We soon hope to pro­duce a reg­u­lar pod­cast and online arts and lan­guage cours­es. The pri­ma­ry lan­guage of TMR is Eng­lish. All arti­cles also appear in French and Span­ish ver­sions. We fre­quent­ly trans­late from Ara­bic and oth­er languages.