Welcome to COUNTERCLOCK.
We’re a literary arts journal that hopes to destigmatize and empower the most authentic narratives sent our way through writing, all while highlighting the intersection of language with art, music, and film through our programs and initiatives.
In writing, as Toni Morrison stated, we ask the center to look towards the margins. We believe in the beauty and flexibility of stories to shed light on the unsaid.
Issue 16
August 2023 | Featuring the pupil as a tunnel + ancient frivolities + soggy chips + the film-poems of S4 PATCHWORK: Film x Poetry. Cover art by JC Alfier.
submit
General submissions to COUNTERCLOCK Journal are currently closed. Submissions to our Pop Punk Poetics folio are open through March 15.
COUNTERCLOCK submissions will always be free. Everyone is eligible to submit, regardless of age or geographic location. Submissions in multiple categories are encouraged. Upon acceptance, COUNTERCLOCK receives first North American publishing rights and archival rights. All rights revert back to the author upon publication. We only ask that you credit us if the work is reprinted in the future.
pop punk poetics
COUNTERCLOCK is now accepting submissions for our Pop Punk Poetics folio, edited by Maria Gray and Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong! With this folio, we hope to celebrate the musicality of poetry, value of interdisciplinary art, and influence of 2000s/early 2010s emo, pop punk, and adjacent musical genres on both contemporary poetry and popular music. We are interested in the general confessional ethos of early-2000s emo and pop punk—think adolescence, obsession, unapologetic dramatics—and seeking work that takes place in a moment where the worst has already happened. Submissions due March 15.
CCWA results 2023
POETRY
Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong, “Four Stories About My Body”
Runner-up: Anya-Maria Johnson, “Looking at the Earth From a Small Galaxy of Meanness”
PROSE
Alexandra Leiseca, “A Native Tourist”
Read the winning selections in Issue 15 here! A special thank you to our judges, William Fargason, Emily Pittinos, and Ghinwa Jawhari.
news
Issue 16 contributor Anthony Borruso was selected as a contributor to the 2023 edition of Best New Poets, published by the University of Virginia Press.
Issue 15 contributor and Best of the Net nominee Amy Nelder’s painting “Bunnies & Guns #2” was exhibited at the 2023 de Young Open.
Issue 7 contributor Sean Enfield gave COUNTERCLOCK a shoutout in his Literary MagNet interview with Poets & Writers, out in their January/February 2024 issue! “After a bad experience workshopping the piece, Enfield says COUNTERCLOCK’s editors’ considerate communication and mission felt like a ‘safe haven.’” Read his interview with P&W’s Dana Isokawa here.
Are you a contributor with news you’d like added to this list? We want to hear from you and celebrate your work! Email us at counterclockjournal@gmail.com to update us.
COUNTERCLOCK is committed to PACBI, or the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and encourage our readers to engage in material action and commit to ongoing solidarity with Palestinians as they face siege and genocide. Israel has kidnapped and killed Palestinian poets and writers, bombed libraries and universities, and much more—all American literary arts organizations should be speaking up. Learn more about the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel here.
