Hello & Welcome to COUNTERCLOCK.
Hello there. WELCOME TO COUNTERCLOCK.
Graphic artwork by Lorette C. Luzajic.
Cover art by JC Alfier.
August 2023 | Featuring the pupil as a tunnel + ancient frivolities + soggy chips + the film-poems of S4 PATCHWORK: Film x Poetry
COUNTERCLOCK is committed to PACBI, or the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and encourage our readers to engage in material action and commit to ongoing solidarity with Palestinians as they face siege and genocide. Israel has kidnapped and killed Palestinian poets and writers, bombed libraries and universities, and much more—all American literary arts organizations should be speaking up. Learn more about the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel here.
WELCOME TO COUNTERCLOCK
We’re a literary arts journal that hopes to destigmatize and empower the most authentic narratives sent our way through writing, all while highlighting the intersection of language with art, music, and film through our programs and initiatives.
In writing, as Toni Morrison stated, we ask the center to look towards the margins. We believe in the beauty and flexibility of stories to shed light on the unsaid.
General submissions to COUNTERCLOCK Journal are currently CLOSED.
Submissions to our Pop Punk Poetics folio are open through March 15th, 2024.
New to COUNTERCLOCK? Start here.
Image: “Morning Glory,” Lorette C. Luzajic (Issue 3)
Watch the film-poems of PATCHWORK: film x poetry
SUBMISSIONS
General submissions to COUNTERCLOCK Journal are currently closed. Submissions to our Pop Punk Poetics folio are open through March 15.
COUNTERCLOCK submissions will always be free. Everyone is eligible to submit, regardless of age or geographic location. Submissions in multiple categories are encouraged. Upon acceptance, COUNTERCLOCK receives first North American publishing rights and archival rights. All rights revert back to the author upon publication. We only ask that you credit us if the work is reprinted in the future.
full submission guidelines & paid options
Image: “can’t escape my own escape,” Natalie Christensen (Issue 14)
COUNTERCLOCK is currently accepting applications for the following positions:
Social Media Director
Blog Director
Blog Contributor
Learn more and apply here!
contributor news
Issue 16 contributor Anthony Borruso was selected as a contributor to the 2023 edition of Best New Poets, published by the University of Virginia Press.
Issue 15 contributor and Best of the Net nominee Amy Nelder’s painting “Bunnies & Guns #2” was exhibited at the 2023 de Young Open.
Issue 7 contributor Sean Enfield gave COUNTERCLOCK a shoutout in his Literary MagNet interview with Poets & Writers, out in their January/February 2024 issue! “After a bad experience workshopping the piece, Enfield says COUNTERCLOCK’s editors’ considerate communication and mission felt like a ‘safe haven.’” Read his interview with P&W’s Dana Isokawa here.
Are you a contributor with news you’d like added to this list? We want to hear from you and celebrate your work! Email us: counterclockjournal [at] gmail [dot] com.
Image: “He is America,” Christian Lee (Issue 12)
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF THE 2023 COUNTERCLOCK WRITER’S AWARDS
POETRY
Winner: Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong, “Four Stories About My Body”
Runner-up: Anya-Maria Johnson, “Looking at the Earth From a Small Galaxy of Meanness”
PROSE
Winner: Alexandra Leiseca, “A Native Tourist”
Read the judges’ selections in Issue 15 here! A special thank you to our judges, William Fargason, Emily Pittinos, and Ghinwa Jawhari.
Image: “isometrica,” Anthony Santulli (Issue 15)
New and trending on our blog, Counterpoint
Best of the Net nominations, a miniseries of craft essays from Smile Ximai Jiang, and more!
Reread Rewind: Woody Woodger’s “Sissy Hypno,” EIC Rachel Lu’s 2021 interview with Chen Chen, and a Q&A with COUNTERCLOCK’s new Managing Editor, Maria Gray.
Catch up with past issues of COUNTERCLOCK Journal here – always available online, for free.
Enjoying COUNTERCLOCK? Please consider making a contribution to COUNTERCLOCK today.
Our mission has always been to empower and heal through an accessible, artistic medium. Our staff is not paid; all financial contributions go toward paying honorariums to guest lecturers, supporting emerging creatives, and assisting fellows from our interdisciplinary programs. Our journal will always be free to access online. We also hope to one day pay contributors.
Click here to check out various ways you can support us or directly support us today on Patreon! Your support goes a long way toward sustaining and maintaining our free, accessible journal.
Words In Motion
In the second installment of her miniseries “Words in Motion,” Smile Ximai Jiang uses Kenji Yoshino’s Covering as a lens through which to interrogate her own cultural and creative impulses.