Feb. 1 Deadline for Med School Lit-Journal's War Issue

This Red Bull Rising blog-post originally appeared Sept. 23, 2014.

Published by the New York University School of Medicine, the twice-yearly Bellevue Literary Review has announced that its Spring 2015 issue will focus on war-related themes. Deadline for submissions is Feb. 1, 2015.

Under the thematic banner of "Embattled: The Ramifications of War," editors are seeking previously unpublished fiction, non-fiction, and poetry on themes of war and military experience. More generally, the journal focuses on themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body.

The special call for submissions reads, in part:

War is one of the necessary realities of our world. Since the beginning of society, people have pitted against each other, putting their lives on the line for a cause. It pushes the human body and mind to their limits. While war can be seen as an expression of mankind at its worst, it is also war that brings out the most visceral elements of life itself: strength, power, love, death, sacrifice, and the will to survive.

In many ways, experiences of battle capture the most fascinating and inherently powerful paradoxes in our world: the balance of life and death, of soft and hard, of quiet and loud, of fear and bravery. Understanding war is crucial to understanding how we, as humans, live. Literature brings these feelings to life—on the page and in our lives.

Submission guidelines include:

• Submit via this web-based tool. In special cases, a postal address is available for hardcopy submissions.

• Word count for prose is 5,000 words.

• Poetry submissions should include no more than three poems, incorporated into one document.

• "Previously published" is defined to include works in print or available to the public on the Internet. Exceptions for previous appearances on personal blogs and other on-line venues may be made on a case-by-case basis.

• Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Editors ask for notification of publication elsewhere.

• The journal acquires first-time North American rights. After publication, all rights revert to the author.

A Facebook page for the Bellevue Literary Review is here.