Above Water

What is Above Water?

Every year in second semester we host a launch party for the best creative pieces at the University of Melbourne.

Will your piece win?

Above Water Submissions Guidelines 2022

You’re trapped just a few inches below the surface, and it refuses to break for you. It resists the pull of your body, the lunge upward from the sea floor. But you’re entranced by the bright lights that snap and scatter like loose beads inside the swell of each wave. 

Every night, each of your dreams ends with a vision of the sea-roof shattering, cutting short your rest. In that infinitesimal space between sleeping and waking, what can you see? Taste? Feel?

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Above Water is the annual creative writing and art competition hosted by the Creative Arts and Media Departments. Shortlisted submissions will be published within the print and online anthologies, with prizes for winners in the writing, visual art and multimedia categories.

Submit written, visual, audio and multimedia pieces to abovewater@farragomagazine.com by Monday July 18, 11:59PM AEST. You must be a current student at the University of Melbourne to enter.

Note: Above Water has no theme, and works will be judged solely on quality. The name of the anthology is just that—a name.

WRITING GUIDELINES:

• All forms of creative writing, including fiction, poetry, prose poetry, creative non-fiction, and works that blur the boundaries of form and genre, are welcome.

• Bilingual submissions and submissions in languages other than English are encouraged.

• Poems must be 75 lines or less.

• Prose must be 2000 words or less, though we recommend a maximum of 1500 words to be competitive.

• Submissions should generally adhere to Farrago’s Style Guide (though this is flexible when it comes to poetry and experimental prose).

• Please submit works as an attached Word doc. or docx. file.

• In the body of the submission email, all entrants must include their full name, student number, the type of work(s) being submitted (e.g. poem, creative nonfiction), the title of the work(s), and any content warnings.

• Since judges will be marking blindly, please ensure the author’s name does not appear anywhere in the submission or in the file name.

• Entries must be the writer’s original work and must not have been published or under consideration for publishing elsewhere.

• All entrants retain copyright over their work, but agree that, by submitting, they grant the UMSU Creative Arts and Media Departments a non-exclusive, irrevocable licence to publish their work in any format or platform.

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDELINES:

• All forms of 2D artwork are welcome, including illustration, painting, photography and comics.

• All forms of 3D artwork are accepted, including sculpture, body art, installations and crafted goods. These forms must be sent as high-resolution photographs, scanned images or other such files. Keep in mind how flattening 3D work can change the design intention.

• Please ensure comics and art/photography series will fit within a maximum of 4 A5 pages.

• In the body of the submission email, all entrants must include their full name, student number, the type of work(s) being submitted (e.g. illustration, photograph of sculpture), the title of the work(s), and any content warnings.

• Farrago has a selection of cameras for hire. These can be picked up from the Media Space on Level 4, Union House. Please send expressions of interest to editors@farragomagazine.com.

• All artwork must be submitted with the following file specifications:

  • 300dpi (dots per inch)

  • CMYK colour

  • One of the following formats: .jpg, .png, .pdf, or .psd.

AUDIO AND MULTIMEDIA GUIDELINES:

• We welcome all forms of art which are incompatible with the printed page. This might include, but is not limited to, music, creative podcasts, short films, animations, music videos, and code poetry.

• Video and audio submissions must be no more than 5 minutes long.

• Video and audio submissions can be attached as audio/video files, or as links to a digital streaming service (e.g. YouTube, Spotify) or a file sharing service (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive).

• Interactive/code poetry should be submitted as an HTML file including Javascript and CSS, or as a link to a website that hosts the file.

• In the body of the submission email, all entrants must include their full name, student number, the type of work(s) being submitted (e.g. short film, recorded song), the title of the work(s), and any content warnings.

• Audio and multimedia submissions will be published online, and will be accessible via QR codes in the print publication.

• Farrago has a selection of photography and video equipment available for hire, which can be picked up from the Media Space on Level 4, Union House. Please send expressions of interest to editors@farragomagazine.com.

OTHER INFORMATION:

In the body of the submission email, all entrants must include their full name, student number, the title of the work(s), and any content warnings. A brief statement of intention (no more than 100 words) is encouraged.

Since judges will be marking blindly, please ensure the author’s name does not appear anywhere in the submission or in the file name.

Entries must be the creator’s original work and must not have been published or under consideration for publishing elsewhere.

All entrants retain copyright over their work, but agree that by submitting they grant the UMSU Creative Arts and Media Departments a non-exclusive, irrevocable licence to publish their work in any format or platform.

All artists will be credited by the name submitted. If you wish to assume a persona or pen name, this must be included in the body of the submission email.

Please direct any queries to abovewater@farragomagazine.com.

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