Submission Guidelines for Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies
From the Editors (Louis Reyes Rivera & Bruce George) of the critically acclaimed The Bandana Republic, a Literary Anthology by Gang Members and their Affiliates comes their latest anthology entitled Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies.
Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies is a literary first that addresses the ways in which the lower echelons of labor make do to enhance their earning power despite what is tantamount to being underemployed. The scene is the traditional and current urban landscape.
How do low paid workers make ends meet? How do those who have had to undergo unemployment survive beyond the standard six months of benefits? What happens to them once they disappear from official statistics? What tactics have they developed? Is there another economic system at work that is totally outside of mainstream standards? What does the underclass do to feed the family within a hostile environment? Are the strategies devised parts of yet another working standard? To what extent is there an underground economy that is not exactly illegal, yet for which there is no standard yardstick by which to measure its impact and effectiveness?
Given the current economic downturns and consistent losses of jobs, are the strategies and options that have long ago developed among the working poor still viable? What are they? Are they legal, extralegal or illegal? What common threads hold the underclass together? Do they bear their own ethos of do’s and don’t’s? How applicable are they?
The answers to these questions serve as the parameters for Street Smarts. Our target audience includes the hundreds of thousands who are now faced with the challenge of negotiating their livelihoods in an adversarial environment in which, at any moment, and for the first time in their working lives, homelessness and public shelters are actual options.
Here's an opportunity for the entire planet to hear your truth, our truth, about both our desperation and our aspiration, straight up from the streets. Street Smarts is an anthology that will include real life stories of how folk who have come from a low socio economic strata have developed their own ways and means to survive.
The editors of Street Smarts would like for you to submit your own story of survival. Some of those stories would include and is not limited to the following: How you currently make ends meet (your current hustle); recipes for a shoestring budget (urban recipes); stories of how we use borrowing and lending pyramid schemes (Urban Banking); true accounts of how street pharmacist (ex-drug dealers) have made their living on the streets via selling drugs; stories of how freelancers and consultants make their living and stay afloat; stories of past and current Rent Parties that were utilized towards preventing families from being evicted; accounts of home remedies (remedies for ailments) that have been handed down from generation to generation; accounts of how you have survived prison politics (stories of makeshift weaponry, makeshift cooking, makeshift ways of communicating with other inmates) etc…; stories of how people that live in urban environments/neighborhoods follow streets codes to keep them safe such as keeping ones hands in ones pocket to project the image that you have a weapon to fend off potentially being victimized; stories of how you have and are using the system (getting over on the system) to your advantage etc.. These are the stories that the editors of Street Smarts would like for you to submit.
Scope:
The editors of Street Smarts will equally consider material on any topic, in any form and according to how you wish to represent yourself. We want to put together the type of book that shows our full creative sides of how we survive in any given situation.
Please submit your material in the form of quotes, short stories, letters, interviews, artwork, and photography which should be sent by email to:
Louisreyesrivera@aol.com
Material can also be sent by regular snail mail to the following address:
Louis Reyes Rivera
Shamal Books
GPO Box 16
New York City 10116
If you want your work sent back to you, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Without the self-addressed stamped envelope, materials will not be returned.
File Formats:
All material submitted must be the author’s original work. Use of work that was done or created by others without permission is a violation of copyright laws.
Send us your best work! Please use spell check on your computer/word processor or manually check your work before sending it. The editors reserve the right to make minor grammatical changes (with your approval) so that all materials conform to our guidelines.
This will be a work of art that should be in the schools too!
Material submission guidelines:
Stories and letters cannot be more than up to 3 pages in length.
Short stories, interviews and essays (political or social) should not be more than ten (10) pages in length and must be double-spaced, typewritten.
Artwork and photographs should conform to a 6" by 9" format.
Requirements:
Please include with your submission your name/address or P.O. Box or e-mail address.
Any questions or concerns about your submission can be sent to the editors.
Terms & Conditions:
A submission implies that you agree with the following terms:
No submission will be returned without your inclusion of a self-addressed stamped envelope. If your work is not accepted we will either return it in your self-addressed stamped envelope or we will discard it.
Submissions may not have been published by any other publishing company or publication. None of the contents may be derived from previously created publications or documents unless specifically noted.
You authorize publication of your work to appear in Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies and in any form that the editors have been able to acquire and distribute throughout the world.
You agree to hold harmless the editors and publisher from any and all claims, suits and damages based on international copyright laws, including plagiarism or unauthorized use, or any other legally related issues.
You have read the Terms & Conditions of Entry. You understand that the Terms & Conditions of Entry are part of this agreement and you agree to such Terms & Conditions of Entry.
Submission Deadline:
We should have received your materials no later than September 2009. Entries submitted after that date might not be considered.
SASE (Self-addressed stamped envelope)(Self-addressed stamped envelope):
Include a stamped self-addressed business-sized envelope so that your work can be returned to you along with notification of acceptance.
Include a stamped self-addressed business-sized envelope so that your work can be returned to you along with notification of acceptance.
Authorized Use:
I, (YOUR NAME), authorize publication of the materials I sent in the anthology, Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies (edited by Louis Reyes Rivera with Bruce George). I further authorize its use in translation into any language, and any other future compilation in book form derived there from and its distribution throughout the world.
I further authorize use of my material as an excerpt that may appear on the Internet, CD-ROM, or DVD, for purposes of promoting or marketing the anthology, Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies.
I understand that I automatically retain all copyrights over my material and that its inclusion does not hinder my rights in any way beyond its publication in said anthology.
___________________________
(Name or signature of author)
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