SUBMISSIONS
APROSEXIA LIT is an International poetry journal dedicated to showcasing the frequently unusual creativity found amongst neurodivergent, cognitively diverse, and those with non-visible disability. The journal's overarching goal is to impress its readership with first-rate work, with an emphasis on the wild diversity that's inherent to marginalized experience of life. It's a way of living that leads to creative expression that doesn't fit into dominant trends or boxes neatly, or neccessarily speak to “universal truths.” And there's no reason that it should.
We want to offer a space where poetry can be unconcerned with masking; thrive on its own terms; be confident in its strengths; and wholehartedly wants to put the down the assumption that the art created by neurodivergent and challenged minds needs to be accessible to a neurotypical or able audiences, in the first place. We work hard enough to get along in the world as it is, and we maintain that an artist's most meaningful forms of expression shouldn't start its journey form a place of self-induced censorship.
In other words, all the ableist gatekeepers can fuck off. There are too few quality spaces where challenged and challenging minds can find inspiration in one another's work—speak and read out of respect for each other's expereince, and just be themselves as artists. Life is hard enough as it is, and we feel that private worlds need to be honored.
We publish in English, but welcome submissions from anywhere in the world.
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APROSEXIA LIT publishes poetry & poetry adjacent work.
Submissions are closed for the time being. But will be re-opening in the spring of 2026. Check back here, on Instagram, and Bluesky for the specifics as they develop.
Response to the open call for [case#2] brought considerably more interest than we could have predicted. Initially, APROSEXIA was conceived to run as a limited, biannual publication. That experience is moving us toward publishing issues more frequently, but without a set schedule. Details are being worked out, but we expect that a plan will be in place by early March—just in time for APROSEXIA LIT's birthday.
NB. We're making every effort to keep on top of our listing on Chill Subs. Of the increasing number of sites available to help with managing and tracking submissions, we feel they're one of the better options—not least because they also make it easy for writers to maintain an online presence without a huge overhead. And, of course, we welcome any feedback you would like to leave for us there
CONTENT
Send your strange and wonderful, offbeat and disturbing [within reason—APROSEXIA LIT isn’t about horror or the experience of abuse for the sake of it]; your dream logic; the stuff you write, and love, but no one seems to get; the inexplicable difficulties you experience in a difficult world; your awkward misinterpretations of neurotypical expectations. Most especially, you are invited to share your joy—even if it is bittersweet—and wherever and however you happen to find it. Whether manic, abstract, or mundane—we'd like to see it. This isn't the place where you need to mask what makes your work strange; unusual; wonderful.
The hope is that APROSEXIA LIT represents a chance for you to send work out into the world that comes from an origin of neurodivergent and invisibly challenged perspective, but isn't required to address the trauma of mental health or disability explicitly—although, if it does, APROSEXIA is a place where it may find a home, as well. If you would like to send something in to be considered, please do.
It should go without saying, but any work that advocates or glorifies hurt or harm will be obliterated from the APROSEXIA inbox.
INSTRUCTIONS
Send 3–6 poems; on no more than eight pages. A new poem should begin a new page.
We can only accept .doc, .docx, .rft, and .txt files, [A handful of exceptions were made for cases #s 1 and 2. Consequently, we have a better appreciation as to why so many small, indie journals are so strict on this point. The software necessary to work with .pdfs—reliably—is prohibitively expensive. This makes working with .pdf copy an absolute nightmare to work with.]
Name your file like so:
lastname_firstname_month.[file format]
If you save your submission file any other way it runs a high risk of being lost. If that happens, it's gone—and it's probably not coming back. [For the sake of our own health, as well as our relationships with loved ones and pets, we need to keep testing our organizational skills and short term memory to a minimum.)
Send your work to: submissions@aprosexia.org
Many of you will know the drill—but to make sure that we're all on the same page:
✬ Previously unpublished work only.
✬ Simultaneous submissions are encouraged—but, be courteous and withdraw any piece if it finds a home elsewhere.
✬ Allow six months between submissions. APROSEXIA wants to see what you, and your fabulous brain, can do. We also favor showcasing multiple pieces by the same poet. Send us your very best work. If we're not able to offer you a spot on the first go, you're welcome to submit again after a little breather.
✬ We don't accept work produced by, or with, any iteration of AI, LLMs, or machine-based composition aids. There are a number of reasons to support this, but first amongst them is that guidelines have yet to develop around what constitutes fair use of these technologies.
**Our rationale :: Although we do no think these technologies are the end of civilization, literacy, creativity, or the like—we take issue with their use as a creative tool because they "learn" by aggregating massive repositories professionalized writing. Generally, this is done without the permission or compensating original authors of the works fairly—which devalues an already undervalued profession. It also strikes us as grossly unfair to pit marginalized voices against algorithms that produce copy based off of repositories that aggregate, average, and normalize what is essentially determined to be a successful operation at the end of the process, rather than a painstaking, ongoing process, that can take literal years to pull off well. In other words, LLMs are big predictive text machines, and we don't want to deal with the end results. They share about as much with a traditional artistic work as a person does with a picture of themselves. It's disingenuous and disrespectful to ask our readers to put any effort into weeding submissions of that kind out.
✬ APROSEXIA is not a paying market, but would like to see that change in the future.
✬ APROSEXIA doesn't, nor will it ever charge reading fees.
✬ We ask for first serial rights, and the right to archive your published work indefinitely. [As our issues are designed as self-contained publications, changing them retroactively isn't feasible. This means that for as long as our issues can be maintained on online, they will be. If you're not okay with this we won't be able to publish your work.]
✬ Copyright always remains with the author—but please acknowledge us if you publish the work featured on APROSEXIA LIT elsewhere. Also, congratulations—we would love to know about the good news, and include it in the contributors section of the website.
DISCLAIMER
APROSEXIA LIT operates under the assumption that people who do and say hateful things should find their produce has rapidly decomposed in the fridge overnight; milk products purchased at market gone sour on the way home; just one sock of any pair ever return to them from the dryer; and anything that they've ever truly wanted from life to remain forever out of reach. If you're someone who feels compelled to spew intolerance and malice at other human beings—especially if those qualities are reflected in your writing—go away. We hope you're about to be chased off a cliff, in melodramatically hostile rain—throw down to the rocks of a raging and polluted sea—by angry villagers wielding sharp and fiery objects.