Rachel Carson named it before we were ready to hear it: a spring without birdsong or bees, without all the sounds that tell us the world is alive. We’re heading toward that silence now. Wildfires, rising seas, record heat waves,...
Rachel Carson named it before we were ready to hear it: a spring without birdsong or bees, without all the sounds that tell us the world is alive. We’re heading toward that silence now. Wildfires, rising seas, record heat waves, relentless storms. The world is quite literally changing beneath our feet, and too many people insist that it isn’t.
Write about the slow burn. We’re looking for writing about denial, survival, adaptation, and exhaustion. Explore what it means to grieve a landscape, to adapt to a world that no longer behaves like itself, or to love someone in a world that doesn’t love you back. What happens when climate change becomes not just an environmental crisis, but a linguistic one—a debate over whether harm exists at all?
In particular, we encourage apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives, ecofiction, and ecopoetry. What does it look like to build a life while the world burns?
We welcome writing of all forms: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid work.
Three winners will be selected and published at the end of May.
For submissions with editorial commentary: We are now at capacity. Thank you for your interest! Our general call for submissions for Silent Spring remains open until 11:59 PT on April 15.
Prizes:
- First place: $1,000 and publication
- Second place: $200 and publication
- Third place: $100 and publication
