Provenance Journal publishes poetry, prose, CNF and essays to 2,000 words about all things historical. “We are particularly interested in highlighting underrepresented narratives of history, especially the histories of marginalised peoples.” Read the complete guidelines here.
SQF: Why did you start this magazine?
Dimasilaw & Kai: For joy! We’re lovers of history and literature and there isn’t much more to it. It sounded awesome to make a spot in online writing just for history, so we went for it.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?
D&K:
We are definitely looking for writing that is actually on-topic: related to history.
We love seeing a little bit of oddness and originality. Surprising topics like alligators or cheese are always a delight to read, and new perspectives on history in general are strongly welcomed! Even if it seems like a weird lens to write about history from, we want it. Even if you think that this kind of history comes from too marginalised or too unconventional of a perspective, yes, we love it.
In general, we like writing that is—for lack of a better term—funky. Whether your tone is unusually clinical or bizarrely flowery, or you write one 50-line stanza or go wild with enjambment every single line, or you use emojis and never-before-seen figures of speech…we also love it. We have broad tastes but we especially like writing that seems a little bit ‘weird’.
SQF: What most often turns you off to a submission?
D&K: Bigotry. That’s really it. We get a surprising amount of subtle bigotry—most of the submission will seem completely fine, then there’s just one line that casually throws out something bigoted out of nowhere. It’s often just a passing remark that could be excised without affecting the rest of the piece, but it always rubs us the wrong way.
SQF: What do you look for in the opening paragraph(s)/stanza(s) of a submission?
D&K: Nothing specific—but we tend to get sucked in by “wham!” lines coming first. The best opening paragraphs, for us, are intense and already getting into the action. Quick momentum is great. Sometimes the action takes a while to settle, and the pace is slow at first, but we always look for something intriguing happening already in the first bits of a piece.
SQF: Many editors list erotica, or sex for sex sake, as hard sells. What are hard sells for your publication?
D&K: Aside from bigotry and sexually explicit work, we’re really open to anything on-theme. Hard sells that aren’t necessarily turn-offs but are difficult to convince us to accept include, well, long blocks of prose text without paragraph breaks. We love ‘strange’ writing, but page-long paragraphs tend to be hard to read! Also, not necessarily a hard sell, but we honestly are not as hyped for white American and British history. We’re happy to take it if we like it, but we get a lot of it and it’s a slightly more difficult sell.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
D&K: “How are you guys doing?” — Pretty well, thanks.
Thank you, Dimasilaw & Kai. We all appreciate your taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
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