Get Rid of Meaning: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Writing #3

Open Call 4th June – 2nd July

Audio Only (listening time 6 mins):

Get Rid of Meaning: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Writing is a biannual periodical by Sticky Fingers Publishing, exploring how and where meaning is produced, maintained and distributed. Here we conjure Kathy Acker, writing in Empire of the Senseless: “GET RID OF MEANING. YOUR MIND IS A NIGHTMARE THAT HAS BEEN EATING YOU: NOW EAT YOUR MIND.”

Our first issue, published in April 2024, gathered together initial responses to this provocation, interrogating the material conditions and affective systems of meaning-making. Exploring sites from the gallery to the community meeting place, and modes from fabulation to prayer, these works uncovered the intersections between identity, sensuality, materiality and marginalisation. Our second issue, published in November 2024, traversed bomba cinemas in the Philippines, the fourth-largest moon in the solar system, and a closet of winter coats. Together, these works provided strategies for surviving an intentionally nonsensical political landscape.

For our third issue, we are interested in work that is activated, is of use. This journal understands that while we study to achieve clarity, the use of that clarity is to allow us to agree to take on greater risks for and with each other.

This publication is unthemed, but recently we have been interested in:

• Valentina Desideri & Stefano Harney’s work in ‘A Conspiracy Without a Plot’ around study, complicit love, and abolition;

• The material conditions produced by living through violent political realities, and the structural solidarities co-produced as a result;

• How, in questioning and subverting the power structures that uphold meaning-making, we may also forge possibilities for a multiplicity of form and language;

• How the logics of property, ownership, and scarcity become entangled with the ways in which we understand knowing;

• Returning to Karen Barad’s work around ‘intra-action’, which describes agency not as an individual property but as a dynamism of forces and reciprocity between things;

• The body as semio-technically determined, and more specifically, thinking through print publishing as a gender technology;

• The relationship between media practices, distribution, and the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

Submissions do not need to be limited to these prompts.

Submission Guidelines 

We are looking for experimental essays and non-fiction between 1-3,000 words from 7 contributors total, who will receive a £100 honorarium each. We will not be accepting poetry or short stories, but hybrid forms are welcome. Full or partial draft submissions are preferred, but pitches will be equally considered.

If you are sending in a pitch, please include:

• 2-3 paragraphs which clearly outline the topics/ideas/questions your work will cover,

• The form/style/tone the work will be written in,

• 2-3 samples of previous work.

If your pitch is accepted, we will work together to decide how to structure feedback in a way which best supports you. This can include editorial feedback and development through in person meetings, online meetings, phone calls, or by email. We are keen to centre your access needs in this process. Please note we will be aiming for full drafts at the end of July, and final texts resolved by the middle of August 2025.

All submissions should be sent to stickyfingerspublishing@gmail.com, with ‘GROM #3 Submission’ as your email subject line. In the body of your email please include:

• Your name and pronouns,

• A short 50 word bio,

• Your work as Word or PDF file, labelled ‘NAME_TITLE’,

• Any images attached as separate JPEGs. Please note imagery will be reproduced in single colour. 

We aim to respond within two weeks of the submission deadline. This publication will be launched at our Summer Party in September 2025 (tbc).