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SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED FOR ISSUE 6
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catflap is Outburst’s acclaimed annual publication of smart new queer writing with a disco heart.
It’s a space for exciting queer thinking, beyond the academic to where pop culture meets queer ideas and feral tenderness. We publish poetry that speaks on the page and the stage, and essays that range from the polemic to the speculative. We love it when things are both/and.
We want queer writing where queer isn’t just an identity, but a crafty method, a sideways strategy, a horny practice in writing and life. We’re here for your grand fury, your insistence on resistance, your venting, inventions, interventions and inversions. We expect the unexpected and we’re excited by your excitement: whether that’s in your use of language; your subject matter; or the connections you make between personal and political — public and private — nows and thens — heres and theres — reality and imagination.
catflap #6 is edited by author So Mayer and will be launched with a special event as part of Outburst Queer Art Festival 2026, November 13 – 21.
catflap is a print only publication, distributed internationally by Public Knowledge Books. Issues 2, 3, 4 and 5 are now available in 33 bookshops, arts centres and galleries across the world. If you’re in Belfast you can pick up back issues at PaperxClips queer bookshop and a full list of worldwide stockists is available here.
WHAT YOU CAN SUBMIT
- Essays of 1500-5000 words
- Two or three poems (max)
The deadline for submissions (essays or poems) is midday on Monday July 13.
All catflap submissions must be the original work of the author and not previously published elsewhere in part or in full, in printed or digital format. Intellectual property of the work will remain with the writer; however, Outburst Arts reserves the right to be the sole publisher of the work for one year from the date of publication.
All selected contributors will receive a fee.
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FAQs
What kinds of writing are you looking for?
A great way to understand the vibe of catflap is to check out previous issues, which you can find in bookstores and galleries locally and internationally, and also via our online shop. If you’re in Belfast, Paperxclips has copies for you to browse.
We want the poems and essays that are ready to burst out of your catflap and into the world. We’re here for the ideas and images that feel too wild, too weird, too fired-up, too tender, too gorgeous, too radical, too queer for anywhere else. Whether you’re pure ragin’, on a rager, always thinking about OutRage, or simply outrageous, send us your rage for our shared queer world. Dazzle, disrupt & delight us.
How unexpected?
We’re looking for great queer writing, so we’re unlikely to accept submissions that are predominantly visual – but we are excited by great queer writing about visual arts, film and performance, and these can include illustrations.
Do you accept fiction or short stories?
Nope, just essays and poetry. We love hybrid or experimental essay forms – for example lyric essays, autofiction, creative non-fiction, speculative non-fiction – so the lines can blur a little.
Do you accept writing from anywhere in the world?
Yes! Outburst Arts and catflap are based in Belfast (Northern Ireland/ North of Ireland) and while we have a strong focus in catflap on writers and artists from this region, usually up to half of the publication is from writers beyond this place.
Do you accept writing in languages other than English?
catflap is predominantly an English language publication but we do accept English translations of work originally written in another language. If the work is published, we will include a version in the language in which it was written.
What’s your policy on AI?
catflap will not accept genAI submissions or translations because commercial genAIs are environmentally destructive theft machines implicated in genocide. If you use legitimate assistive AI apps such as Otter for speech-to-text transcription or other access needs, for our information please include a short statement with your submission, naming the apps used and how you’ve used them.
I want to submit but I’m struggling to get started… What should I do?
Here’s a line for you to begin with: “When we are together in the streets we…”
Who’s the editor?
So Mayer (they/them) is a writer, editor, bookseller, film curator and organiser. You might have come across some of their collaborative editorial projects such as queer SFFH smut anthology Unreal Sex, co-edited with Adam Zmith for Cipher Press; Silver Press’s anthology of Ursula K. Le Guin’s feminist essays Space Crone, co-edited with Sarah Shin; Club Des Femmes’ online magazine of queer feminist pop culture, Culture Club; or Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot (in English and Russian), co-edited with Sarah Crewe and Madailín Burnhope for English PEN. Their most recent books are Bad Language, a manifesto and memoir about language and power from Peninsula, Truth & Dare, a collection of speculative non-fiction from Cipher, and A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing, a pocket essay about queer cinema against censorship, from Peninsula Press. Find out more at somayer.net.
