Call for Submissions

Tribute to Michelle Cliff

Beloved writer, editor, and critic Michelle Cliff died on June 12, 2016. Cliff edited Sinister Wisdom with Adrienne Rich from 1981 until 1983. Cliff’s novels, Abeng (1984), No Telephone to Heaven (1987), Free Enterprise (1993), and Into the Interior (2008) are beloved as well as her earliest collection, Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise (Persephone Press, 1980) and her 1985 collection, The Land of Look Behind (Firebrand Press). Her essay, “If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write This in Fire,” which first appeared in Claiming an Identity and was later included in Home Girls (Kitchen Table Press, 1983), was also the title of a collection of essays released by the University of Minnesota Press in 2008.

Honoring Cliff’s life and work is crucial. Sinister Wisdom invites submissions for a special issue or dossier to be published in 2017 or 2018 on Cliff’s work and legacy. Creative responses are invited as well as writings that uncover the meanings and significance of Cliff’s work. For an example of the type of work Sinister Wisdom is seeking, see Sinister Wisdom 87: Tribute to Adrienne Rich, available for purchase here: http://sinisterwisdom.org/SW87

Please submit work through Sinister Wisdom’s regular submission platform: http://sinisterwisdom.org/submit

Inquiries welcome to Sinister Wisdom’s editor and publisher, Julie R. Enszer: Julie@SinisterWisdom.org

We look forward to reading and considering all work submitted prior to December 31, 2016 for this issue.