Call for Submissions

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At this time White Crane is not offering payment for articles. Contributors of short pieces receive a free copy of the issue their piece appears in. Contributors of substantial articles receive a free year's subscription.

White Crane Journal is committed to enhancing the spiritual lives of gay men by proclaiming the so-often suppressed news that many, many gay men ARE, perhaps by constitution, spiritually-oriented. One way we proclaim that news is by sharing the inner working of our souls.

Call for Submissions

Deadline for submissions is the 1st of the month prior to the month of publication. WCJ is published on the quarter days. So deadlines are the 1st of February for the Spring issue, the 1st of May for the Summer issue, the 1st of August for the September issue, and the 1st of November for the Winter issue. And, of course, it's best to have submitted a query long before these dates and to have gotten material to the editor well in advance of the final deadline. Writers are welcome to query about submissions for issues far into the future.

 

The Winter 2003 will features articles from the last seven years of White Crane's editorship under Toby Johnson.

Readers are invited to write us regarding favorite articles from the past. We won't be accepting new material, except for book reviews.
Letters to the editor are always welcome.

 

The Spring 2004 issue will be on Elders.

"A society that no longer respects its elders is a society that has lost touch with its history and its very grounding. Gay culture, so often a leader in so many ways, and yet at the same time so focused on beauty and youth, as a rule, is one rich with ancestors, teachers and elders of all ages and sizes, and of both sexes. How do we recognize our Elders? How do we treat our Elders? What respect is owed to them? What care and response-ability do we have to them? Who are they? Who do you look up to as your predecessors, your teachers, your path makers? What are the traditions that teach us how to work with and leam from our elders and become elders ourselves? As we age, we all become elders. What kind of elder will you be?"

Deadline for this issue: February 1st, 2004

 

The Summer 2004 issue will feature articles on the topic of Marriage.

"Will you marry me? So sweet and innocent a question and yet somehow it sendspoliticians, fundamentalists and even those who seemingly would not deny gay people most other civil equalities off the deep end of rhetoric. What do you think? Do you want to marry? Should we try to emulate a failing heterosexual institution? Or could we offer a better way and save ourselves a lot of craziness? Should we even use the term? Is it simply a matter of civil rights? How do you feel about being scapegoated for the failures of heterosexual marriage? What is marriage anyway? Where does it come from? How do you experience is in your life? What great "tradition" do we threaten with our desire to make commitments to one another? Are lasting commitments anathema to gaiety? How do we go about them without ape-mg the traditions of heterosexuals? How did you get married? Do you dream of getting married? What is this all about anyway?"

Deadline for Summer issue: May 1st 2004

 

Contributions are invited on these--and any other--topics of interest to a gay readership.

White Crane is always interested in book reviews of titles related to gay men's spiritualites.

We're also interested in B&W line drawings. Artists are invited to contact us about subject matter for graphics.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING AT BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

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The editor invites submission of articles and personal accounts that reveal the subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives:

• --how deep sexual feelings work to inspire spiritual longings
  
• --how deep spiritual feelings enhance sexual experience
  
• --how our lovers manifest, in the flesh, "God's" love for us
  
• --how the struggles of life as gay men force virtue on us
  
• --how the internecine hurt, pain and rejection we cause one another because we're members of an oppressed minority call us to participate in the sufferings of "God," striving to cope with the limitations and problems of individualized incarnation and multiplied perspective
  
• --how the beauty of young men shines forth as the beauty of "God" and "God's" creation
  
• --how the "enlightenment" that comes with gay sensibility results in feelings of personal frustration in dealing with "the world," but, thereby, push us to participate in "saving the world"
  
• --how gay experience redefines the notion of "God"
  
• --how the model of gay forebears demonstrates wisdom and hints at the meaning of life for fellow gay men
  
• --how the work of spiritual writers--gay and non-gay, ancient and contemporary--have helped give meaning to life and to gay identity: Thomas Merton, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Joseph Campbell, C.S. Lewis, Alan Watts, Arthur C. Clarke, Edward Carpenter, John Boswell, Mark Thompson, C.G. Jung, Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, Meister Eckhart, John of the Cross, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ramakrishna, Christopher Isherwood, Walter Williams, Gerald Heard, Will Roscoe, Harry Hay, Mitch Walker, Arthur Evans--and how many more?
  
• --how coming out has been an experience of conversion
  
• --how sexual desire is an occasion for prayer
  
• --how homosexuality is the sign of a vocation that cannot be resisted
  
• --how "God" receives waves of joy each time a human consciousness enters the altered state of sexual arousal and breaks through into pleasure
  
• --how sexual arousal and the ecstasy of orgasm are participation in "God's" joy
  
• --how gay sensibility and enlightenment contribute to the development of a new spiritual awareness for humankind
  
• --how YOU WOKE UP

Please share your experience and hard-won wisdom through the pages of White Crane. Articles and personal accounts need not be professionally written if you'll work with the Editor to bring the composition and style up to standard. Believing that working through written text to bring out all its subtle meaning is itself an act of spiritual discipline, the Editor is willing to invest time and energy to make every submission a valuable contribution.

Mail submissions to White Crane, 172 Fifth Avenue #69, Brooklyn NY 11217. Please include a SASE for return. OR, better, submit by email. Send the article as an attached file in RTF format (titled "yourname.rtf" --obviously inserting your last name) OR paste the entire text into email. Be sure to include your name and mailing address in the file with the article, along with a one sentence bio. (To submit to Bo Young, paste text into email; do not use the .rtf option.)

Length of the contributions is dependent on placement in the issue. Articles related to the announced featured themes should run between 250 and 2500 words. Most articles run about 1000 words. Articles up to 5000 words will be considered (and need not fit the featured themes), but, of course, fewer such long, free-standing pieces can be used.