Sinister Wisdom: Jewish Dykes Unite!
Call for Submissions

Sinister Wisdom is seeking poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and genre-bending works from Jewish dykes of all kinds — and we mean all. Jews of all origins, converts, Jews with tattoos, patrilineal Jews, Jews who have never stepped foot in a synagogue before, etc. No matter how religious you are or how much you may feel like a “fake Jew,” submit to us!

We want your Jewish lesbian joy and your Jewish lesbian pain. We want your yearning, your gossip, your fashion tips, your love stories, your too-good-to-keep-to-yourself lesbian sexcapades and fantasies. Tell us about your grief, your confusion, your dating horror stories, your anxiety, your heartbreak, your intergenerational trauma.

Jewish lesbians of color, disabled Jewish lesbians, gender non-confirming Jewish lesbians, Jewish lesbians with various marginalized identities — how do various facets of your identity interact with and inform each other?

How does Judaism influence the way you think about your body? About sex and pleasure? About aesthetic expression (fashion, piercings, tattoos, etc.)? Trans and gender-expansive dyke angels, how does your Jewish identity relate to your gender identity?

How do Jewish rituals appear in your life? How do you find yourself queering these rituals and Judaism as a whole? How do you read, relate to, and interpret Jewish texts as a Jewish lesbian?
We want your thoughts on current issues affecting Jews and lesbians everywhere. Yes, write to us about Israel and Palestine! How has your relationship to the world shifted as a Jewish lesbian after October 7th? We are particularly interested in the perspectives of Jewish protestors, students, and educators.

What is dating like as a Jewish lesbian? How does your identity affect the way you relate to others, or the way they relate to you? Where do you find community and belonging? How have your queer friendships shaped, challenged, or redefined your understanding of love, identity, and joy?

What challenges or joys arise from embodying or engaging with butch/femme identities in contemporary Jewish and lesbian spaces? How has butch/femme culture evolved or been reimagined in your own relationships or communities?

What role does ancestry, biological and otherwise, play in your life? What do you think is important to hold on to from our Jewish lesbian past and elders?

WE WANT YOUR ART. Bold, abundant, creepy, freaky, sad, loving, angry, hot. Show us what you got! (The issue editors will select two color pieces of art work - one image for the front cover and one for the back cover. Interior art work will be reproduced in black and white.)

We want your weird stuff, your silly stuff: give us the work you can’t describe, your craziest forms and strangest ideas, your diary confessions, your most outlandish dreams and fantasies, your notes app poetry — the stuff you think no one will understand.

We want to hear you argue with yourself, question and challenge tradition, say things that contradict each other, get lost and confused, leave things unresolved — that’s what Judaism is all about.

If you are Jewish and lesbian and your work does not sound like or address any of the above, please submit to us anyway! We want to know what Jewish lesbians, particularly of younger generations, are thinking, feeling, talking, kvetching, and kvelling about. We want YOU.

Images should be .jpg or .tif files only, and be of print-quality resolution, sized at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).

The deadline for submissions is June 20, 2025. The anticipated publication date for this issue is in 2027.

Guest Editors:

SJ Waring (she/her) is a recent Smith College graduate and Jewish femme poet based in New York. Her work has previously been published in Hey Alma and ARTS By the People’s Moving Words project, among others.

alexa hulse (she/they) is a nice Jewish femme living in Charlotte, North Carolina. By day, she is the Editorial Assistant and a frequent contributor at Lilith magazine. Outside of Lilith, she writes sonnets, looks at the moon, and goes to see a new movie with her friends every week.