Seeking Creative Writing Submissions

[timbuktumagazine]

We are currently seeking submissions for the premier issue of our publication entitled "Timbuktu." This magazine is an imaginatory travel journal composed of creative writings by both famous and unknown authors & poets. Each issue will centre on a specific city, one that you will have heard of but likely will never have visited.

The city we have chosen to focus on in the first issue is Timbuktu, which is also the title of the publication. Future issues will be subtitled with the chosen location of that particular issue.

Timbuktu perfectly embodies the ethos of our publication. It is a distant and outlandish place, and is the epitome of the unknown. Everyone has their own idea of what the city may look like but in reality few have actually experienced it.

Future issues of the publication will be based on: Jakarta, Minsk, Helsinki, Kathmandu & Calcutta.

The whole idea of the publication is to commission creative writers to contribute imagined short stories, poems, haikus and other forms of writing all based on the publication’s themed city.
Contributors will only be allowed to use their preconceptions and existing knowledge of that place as an inspiration for their work.
This way all content will be linked by the subconscious of both the writers and the readers and will work together to create an overall impression of the location.
Each reader’s pre-existing knowledge or indeed exposure to the city will shape their own individual experience as they read the amalgamation of literary works in the publication.

We are looking for any form of creative writing, including (but not limited to): short stories, streams of consciousness, poems, haikus, etc.
If you are interested in having your writing published, please submit a piece inspired by our theme of "Timbuktu" by the 24th of February for consideration.

For more information or to submit work, please email us: [email protected]
follow us on twitter:https://twitter.com/#!/Timbuktu_Mag
or join our facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=gr ... 8120074138

[Messiah]

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Tim cannot afford
To visit Timbuktu: It
Costs a buck or two.


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However, if you are at all interested I could ask Jeremy Corns to pay it a visit - He is of the opinion that Sankoré mosque would make for a viable target.


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[Messiah]

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Galia's make-up was a sight to see
It was part Max Factor, part Cherokee.
Her feet were a clock that said ten to two:
A hand-me-down from her family tree.
She owned keys to a truck, rusty tractor
and a shack in the wilds of Timbuktu.

A woman of Malian pedigree,
Her diet was strictly Senegalese.
But whatever she ate just passed straight through:
She owed a lot to her heredity.
When feeling crappy, she would sing the blues
and read books in her outside lavatory.

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[Messiah]

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Jeroboam Cornute gamboled across the rubble of Sankoré mosque bringing to an end the lives of those unlucky enough as to have survived the explosion. It was a bullet to the temple for each and every one of them, locals and tourists alike. He had never been one to discriminate.
Architecturally, the mosque, built during the declining years of the Empire of Mali, in the early 15th century, had been of the traditional Sahel style. Considered remarkable for its large pyramidal mihrab, it had been demolished in the style of the Carlton Hotel, Beirut – twenty-five tons of TNT on an old Bedford truck.
The weather for the time of year was hot and dry. He despatched the last of the whimpering Malian Muslims and took a sip of ginger beer from his monogrammed hip flask; an action which served to remind him of the fact that he was late for an appointment at Djinguereber mosque. The initials on the flask were not his own—Jeroboam had liberated it from a fellow that had had no further need of it; not now that there was a hole where his throat used to be.
A woman in yellow robes walked past, accompanied by a child of indiscernible age and sex. He tossed the child a couple of live rounds and gave it a crafty wink.
'Get some practice in,' he said. 'You never know when I might decide to pay a return visit.'
Whistling a tune by Jamie Cullum, the Machine Gun Messiah took out his pocket map and compass and headed off into the sunset.
♫ — ''These are the days that bring new meaning. I feel the stillness of the sun and I feel fine...''


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[Messiah]

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Here are two further submissions for your consideration, all of them written using my preconceptions of the place, and devoid of existing knowledge.

Tea, in Timbuktu,
Tastes lemon, green and black to
A synaesthetic.

*

There’s a plethora
Of flora in Timbuktu.
But fuck all fauna.

And here is a poetry submission for a suggested issue 2:

Timbuktu
Issue Two
Kathmandu.

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