Critical Special Issue: Myanmar - Ecology, History, Culture, and Politics

One of our current projects is a critical special issue on Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) involving the curation of written and audiovisual works from the people of Myanmar.  In collaboration with Parami University, this ongoing project is in its early stages of development as we close out 2024.

In this critical special issue, we intend to explore the ecology, culture, history, and politics of Myanmar for the purpose of contextualization of the critical special issue within the place of Myanmar, taking an “expanded time horizons” systems wisdom approach to this research.

We are seeking fiction, nonfiction, photography, visual art, documentary film, fiction film, animation, recorded work (audio only), and expansive creative works implementing multiple media types.

We are accepting submissions from people around the globe, as long as the work has some connection to (and focuses upon) Myanmar and the topic areas listed above.  We are hoping to curate a variety of pieces from creators within and outside Myanmar’s borders, so as to foster the internal and external perspectives necessary for reciprocal reasoning.  

We want to get a sense of place from inside and outside Myanmar’s borders.

See our specific submission guidelines below.

Submission Guidelines

We do not require blinded submissions.  We prefer knowing as much about the author/creator as possible.

Remember, The Upper New Review is a hybrid publication.  We encourage the use of hyperlinks and embeddable media: images, audiovisuals, datasets, visualizations, etc.  (It is our job at The Upper New to convert these embeddable elements to printable ephemera when and if the time comes.)

We welcome simultaneous submissions, but ask that you notify us immediately and withdraw your submission if it is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Prose (fiction and nonfiction)

For prose, the minimum word count for a manuscript is 3000 words.  We consider a short story to be no longer than 20,000 words, so our maximum word count is 20,000 words for fiction and nonfiction manuscripts.

Properly formatted manuscripts, including 12pt font, double-spacing, page numbers, etc.

For nonfiction works, please include properly formatted citations, using whatever system works for you (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.)

.DOCX or .ODT file formats preferred.  

PDF files are acceptable as well, but more difficult to parse in our system.

Visual Art

For 2D visual art, such as painting, illustration, photography, digital art, etc.: Submit a single image of the work.  Ensure the resolution of the image submitted is high enough to showcase the quality of your creative work.  Please do not include any watermarks visible in the image.

For 3D visual art, such as sculpture, installations, digital models, etc.: Submit a single image of the work.  Ensure the composition and resolution of the image submitted is appropriate to showcase the quality of your creative work.  As an alternative, please submit a brief video showcasing a single 3D work.  Limit the length of the video to 90 seconds.  Narration is allowed, but no music or soundtrack.  If you are submitting a video, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the video.

For images: .jpg file format is preferred

Motion Works (Documentary Film, Fiction Film, Animation)

For motion art, such as live action films and animations: Submit a single video, 1080x1920 resolution, either horizontal or vertical aspect ratio.  Limit duration of video to five (5) minutes.  If the full length of the work you are submitting exceeds five minutes, please indicate this in the synopsis of your submission, and ensure the video file you submit is an appropriate preview of the complete work.  As opposed to uploading a video file directly to Submittable, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the video.

For video: .mp4 file format is preferred

Recorded Work (Audio Only)

For auditory works, such as music and spoken word: Submit a single audio file, no more than five (5) minutes in length.  Ensure the fidelity of the audio submitted is high enough to showcase the quality of your creative work.  If the full length of the work you are submitting exceeds five minutes, please indicate this in the synopsis of your submission, and ensure the audio file you submit is an appropriate preview of the complete work.  As opposed to uploading an audio file directly to Submittable, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the audio.

For audio: .mp3 file format is preferred

Multiple Media Types

For interdisciplinary/multimedia works, please use your best judgment concerning the nature of the single artifact to be submitted to best represent your work.  Whichever format you choose, please reference specific guidelines in categories above.

Submissions Policy

Any submission not strictly adhering to the guidelines will be automatically rejected.  Resubmissions adhering to guidelines are allowed.  You will start a new submission and pay the requisite fees.

Unfortunately, The Upper New cannot provide refunds for any submissions.

We are seeking portfolios of visual artwork, such as photography, illustration, painting, mixed media, and digital art.  

We are always looking for established and emerging talents as potential contributors to and collaborators with The Upper New.

In your portfolio submission, you will provide:

• A portfolio title
• A portfolio containing exactly 15 visual artworks - one image per visual artwork (can be combined as a single portfolio document containing 15 pages)
• A description of your portfolio
• An artist statement
• A brief bio

Please ensure the resolution of the images submitted is high enough to showcase the quality of your visual artwork.

There are two options for upgraded services: a detailed review, and a 1:1 review session, discussing your portfolio.  You may select one or both of these options.

Typically, our basic portfolio reviews have a 1-2 month turnaround time.  

If you’ve requested a detailed review, this can add additional time, up to a total of three months.  

If you request a review session, we will contact you to schedule the review session.

All submitted portfolios will be considered for publication in The Upper New Review, and for inclusion in our collection of works to be used across all Upper New initiatives, including our curricular materials.  In any use case, proper credit will be given.

What are stewardship stories?

Simply put: stewardship stories are stories about how to do ecological stewardship.

What does it look like to do stewardship in reality?  What are all the ways stewardship can be practiced? Where is stewardship happening?

What kinds of ecological stewardship are you practicing, and how do you conduct this practice?  Tell us all about so we can help others learn about how to do stewardship too!

Stewardship stories can take many forms, starting as hybrid nonfiction works that may include audiovisual elements.  We’d love to see these stories transform into a podcast series, or perhaps a documentary video series we can host on Vimeo or YouTube.  In service of providing these stories as open educational resources (OER) we envision offering all of these media elements with Creative Commons licensing.

We are building our own stewardship stories as well, such as tracking the growth of several species of amphibians adjacent to Little Glade Creek in Glade Valley, North Carolina.

Guidelines

Currently, due to staff limitations, submissions must be written in English.

These are open themed submissions, so please consider anything as a potential for publication in The Upper New Review.

Submissions must be previously unpublished, in print or online.  Publication does not include personal blogs, social media posts, etc.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere, and withdraw your submission from consideration.

We’re open to all subject matter, with the exception that we will not publish anything containing gratuitous sexual content.  It’s certainly reasonable for your stewardship story to concern reproductive issues for any number of species, including humans.

Responses for any submission can take up to eight months, with variations depending on the contents of the submission and the time of year.  Typically,  we will strive to have a response for your submission within two months.  If it has been six months since you submitted, and you have not heard from us, please do send us a follow-up inquiry!

Specific Rules

For your submission, you may submit one manuscript document.

If you have multiple stewardship stories you’d like to submit, we want to consider them!  Up to four additional manuscript documents may be submitted (with an additional media fee for each) allowing a total of five stewardship story manuscript documents per submission. 

The minimum word count for your stewardship story manuscript is 3000 words.  We don’t really have a maximum word count for stewardship stories.  However: anything over 20,000 words will really need to keep our interest, and likely we’ll need to serialize it if we accept for publication, but that’s okay!

If you’ve created diagrams, illustrations, photographs, or any sorts of static visual imagery to supplement your stewardship stories, please embed these images directly into the manuscript where relevant.

If you’ve created audio recordings or videos to supplement your stewardship stories, please include placeholders like [video here] in your manuscript, and provide us with a YouTube or Vimeo link to your streaming video file (or SoundCloud, etc. for audio files).  If we need a password to access the file, please include the password.

Any submission not strictly adhering to the guidelines will be automatically rejected.  Resubmissions adhering to guidelines are allowed.  You will start a new submission and pay the requisite fees.

We're seeking out research narratives from people pursuing knowledge in any field, all over Earth.

Who is writing research narratives?  Researchers. You.  You’re conducting research.  That means you’re a researcher.  You might be focused in the sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities.

Maybe it’s just you.  Maybe it’s a collaborative team. Maybe you’re in the lab.  Maybe you’re in the field.

Maybe you’re doing interdisciplinary work.  Maybe you’re doing transdisciplinary work.  Maybe, just maybe, you’re defying the disciplines. (Maybe you’re completely undisciplined, in a good way…)

Regardless: you’ve got questions, you’ve got methods, and you’ve got findings.  Maybe they’re just preliminary.  You’re still looking.  How’d you get here, and what are you going to do about it?

What are the logistical parameters we are looking for in a research narrative?

For anyone conducting any kind of research, we want to hear the story of the research.  How would you explain your work to a middle school student audience?  This is a teaching and learning scenario.

We're looking for jargon-free, approachable stories about your research process and findings, and the relevance of how your research fits into the grander scheme of things.  In other words, why are you doing what you're doing, and what's next?

We don't have a maximum word count, but we hope you can be concise and engaging.  

We'd rather you worry about crafting a good story that is easy to absorb for someone with a high school education.  Pretend you're teaching people how to understand your work.  

Please make sure your narrative is at least 3000 words.  Likely it will be nearer to 5000 words.  But, as long as it is at least 3000 words, concise, and engaging, you should be off to a good start achieving what we're looking for.

Our hybrid publication process is, essentially, a combination of writing, images, and multimedia content.  You may or may not be able to share the data sets associated with your research, but if you can (even if it’s anonymized, etc.), that would be great.  

We also like the idea of sharing analysis syntax or protocols, which would make it much easier for other folks to replicate and verify your work, should that be relevant to the way you’re doing research.

More details about submissions

Currently, due to staff limitations, submissions must be written in English.

These are open themed submissions, so please consider anything as a potential for publication in The Upper New Review.

Submissions must be previously unpublished, in print or online.  Publication does not include personal blogs, social media posts, etc.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere, and withdraw your submission from consideration.

We’re open to all subject matter, with the exception that we will not publish erotica or anything containing gratuitous sexual content.  For example, we would happily read a personal reflection on the mating habits of river otters in your local river basin.

Responses for any submission can take up to eight months, with variations depending on the contents of the submission and the time of year.  Typically,  we will strive to have a response for your submission within two months.  If it has been six months since you submitted, and you have not heard from us, please do send us a follow-up inquiry!

Any submission not strictly adhering to the guidelines will be automatically rejected.  Resubmissions adhering to guidelines are allowed (fees apply).

 

We accept submissions of visual art, motion art, auditory art, performance art, interactive experiences, and interdisciplinary works.

Currently, due to staff limitations, creative submissions involving language must be primarily in English (or provide English subtitles).

These are open themed submissions, so please consider anything as a potential for publication in The Upper New Review.

Submissions must be previously unpublished, in print or online.  Publication does not include personal blogs, social media posts, etc.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere, and withdraw your submission from consideration.

We are open to all subject matter, with the exception that we will not publish erotica or anything containing gratuitous sexual content.  For example, we would happily watch a documentary on the mating habits of slugs in your local river basin.

Responses for any submission can take up to eight months, with variations depending on the contents of the submission and the time of year.  Typically,  we will strive to have a response for your submission within two months.  If it has been six months since you submitted, and you have not heard from us, please do send us a follow-up inquiry!

Specific Rules

For your submission, you may submit one creative work: either visual art, motion art, auditory art, performance art, interactive experience, or interdisciplinary work.

Up to three additional individual works may be submitted (with an additional media fee for each) allowing a total of four works per submission.  Additional works must match the first submission.  Combined submissions of visual art, motion art, auditory art, performance art, interactive experience, or interdisciplinary work are not permitted.

For 2D visual art, such as painting, illustration, photography, digital art, etc.: Submit a single image of the work.  Ensure the resolution of the image submitted is high enough to showcase the quality of your creative work.

For 3D visual art, such as sculpture, installations, digital models, etc.: Submit a single image of the work.  Ensure the composition and resolution of the image submitted is appropriate to showcase the quality of your creative work.  As an alternative, please submit a brief video showcasing a single 3D work.  Limit the length of the video to 90 seconds.  Narration is allowed, but no music or soundtrack.  If you are submitting a video, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the video.

For motion art, such as live action films and animations: Submit a single video, 1080x1920 resolution, either horizontal or vertical aspect ratio.  Limit duration of video to five (5) minutes.  If the full length of the work you are submitting exceeds five minutes, please indicate this in the synopsis of your submission, and ensure the video file you submit is an appropriate preview of the complete work.  As opposed to uploading a video file directly to Submittable, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the video.

For auditory works, such as music and spoken word: Submit a single audio file, no more than five (5) minutes in length.  Ensure the fidelity of the audio submitted is high enough to showcase the quality of your creative work.  If the full length of the work you are submitting exceeds five minutes, please indicate this in the synopsis of your submission, and ensure the audio file you submit is an appropriate preview of the complete work.  As opposed to uploading an audio file directly to Submittable, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the audio.

For performance art, regardless of genre, we assume the best method for submitting this work is in the form of a video.  Submit a single video, 1080x1920 resolution, either horizontal or vertical aspect ratio.  Limit duration of video to five (5) minutes.  If the full length of the work you are submitting exceeds five minutes, please indicate this in the synopsis of your submission, and ensure the video file you submit is an appropriate preview of the complete work.  As opposed to uploading a video file directly to Submittable, we prefer a document containing a URL to access the video.

For interactive experiences, we’d like to see a walkthrough demo of how your interactive experience functions for the intended user(s).  We assume the best method for submitting this work is in the form of a video.  Submit a single video, 1080x1920 resolution, either horizontal or vertical aspect ratio.  Limit duration of video to five (5) minutes.  Please submit a document containing a URL to access the video.  In the same document, please provide any URLs necessary to access more expansive versions of the interactive experiences, so long as these experiences are not behind paywalls.

For interdisciplinary works, please use your best judgment concerning the nature of the single artifact to be submitted to best represent your work.  Whichever format you choose, please reference specific guidelines in categories above.

Any submission not strictly adhering to the guidelines will be automatically rejected.  Resubmissions adhering to guidelines are allowed.  You will start a new submission and pay the requisite fees.

We accept submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.  

Currently, due to staff limitations, submissions must be written in English.

These are open themed submissions, so please consider anything as a potential for publication in The Upper New Review.

Submissions must be previously unpublished, in print or online.  Publication does not include personal blogs, social media posts, etc.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere, and withdraw your submission from consideration.

We’re open to all subject matter, with the exception that we will not publish erotica or anything containing gratuitous sexual content.  For example, we would happily read a personal reflection on the mating habits of river otters in your local river basin.

Responses for any submission can take up to eight months, with variations depending on the contents of the submission and the time of year.  Typically,  we will strive to have a response for your submission within two months.  If it has been six months since you submitted, and you have not heard from us, please do send us a follow-up inquiry!

Specific Rules

For your submission, you may submit one document: either fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.

Up to three additional documents may be submitted (with an additional media fee for each) allowing a total of four documents per submission.  Additional documents must match the first submission.  Combined submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are not permitted.

For prose, the minimum word count for a manuscript is 3000 words.  We consider a short story to be no longer than 20,000 words, so our maximum word count is 20,000 words for fiction and nonfiction manuscripts.

For poetry, limit each poem to three pages.  Do not put multiple poems in the same document.

Any submission not strictly adhering to the guidelines will be automatically rejected.  Resubmissions adhering to guidelines are allowed.  You will start a new submission and pay the requisite fees.